Perinatal Education and Support Program: Baystate's New Beginnings

Parent education traditionally focuses on childbirth, whereas the perinatal period gets little attention despite parents' reports of feeling unprepared. Lack of education surrounding newborn behavior leads to decreased maternal confidence and ineffective responsiveness to infant cues for feeding, crying, and sleep. This can cause overfeeding, lowered breastfeeding success, and contributes to parental stress which can impact maternal-infant bonding. Lack of postpartum maternal support adds to fatigue and stress which contributes to poor maternal well-being. This article describes an innovative perinatal program, Baystate's New Beginnings, modeled after the education from the 2011 California Baby Behavior Campaign and The Secrets of Baby Behavior that combines newborn behavior education and maternal support in the first 3 months postpartum to improve maternal role transition.