Nutrition component in a comprehensive child development program. I. The home visitor's role in the prenatal intervention phase.
Nutritional services were integrated in a comprehensive child development program for sixty-eight disadvantaged urban families in an attempt to promote maximum cognitive and psychosocial functioning in their children. Child development trainers made weekly home visits beginning in pregnancy, which combined data gathering, direct nutritional counseling, and early sensory excercises for infants. This paper describes the prenatal home visit program, the training of the home visitors, how the 24-hr. food recall method was adapted for their use, the nature of the home visits, and the complex role of the home visitor. The group whose families participated in the prenatal home visits and were also followed for six months after the infants' birth scored higher on six-month Cattell Scales than did a control group who entered the program at six months of age. There were no stillbirths or neonatal deaths. The incidence of low-birth-weight infants was lower than the national averages. Participation in the program was high.
D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology; D003191:Comprehensive Health Care; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D006699:Home Care Services / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007227:Infant Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007361:Intelligence Tests; D008297:Male; D009518:New York; D009749:Nutrition Surveys; D052756:Nutritional Sciences / Q000193:education*; D011203:Poverty; D011247:Pregnancy; D011295:Prenatal Care / Q000379:methods