Welcome Baby Study
Welcome Baby is a home visiting program based in Los Angeles County that helps families with issues such as basic health care, insurance coverage, breastfeeding, nutrition, maternal mental health, family violence, and home safety. Welcome Baby also supports child development through screening and parenting education.
The program offers support from registered nurses and personal parent coaches, who in addition to providing one-on-one support, also help families schedule timely health care appointments and access public benefits and community services as needed. The program is free, voluntary, and provides hospital and home-based interventions for pregnant and postpartum women. Welcome Baby is offered to all people who give birth in select hospitals throughout Los Angeles County and includes up to nine engagement points, beginning either prenatally or at the birth of the child through the child’s first nine months of life.
The Welcome Baby Study
First 5 LA contracted with AIR and its partners at Georgetown University and Juárez & Associates to conduct the Welcome Baby Study, a longitudinal study of the Welcome Baby program. The primary goals of the evaluation were to (1) examine maternal and child outcomes for Welcome Baby participants receiving virtual visits and investigate how they differ from those of a comparison group of parents who did not participate in Welcome Baby, and (2) explore how maternal and child outcomes for Welcome Baby clients vary by maternal characteristics.
Key Findings
- Welcome Baby enrollment and completion rates increased substantially with virtual visits.
- Families were overwhelmingly satisfied with support provided by the program.
- Welcome Baby families were more likely than a community comparison group to have an established medical home in their babies’ first year of life.
- Families receiving Welcome Baby were more likely to be screened for domestic violence and depression than families in a community comparison group.
- Welcome Baby families were more likely to receive breastfeeding support than comparison group families, and they breastfed longer.
- Families in Welcome Baby had higher levels of parenting confidence than families in a community comparison group.
- Welcome Baby families had children with more positive social and emotional development than comparison group families.
