ABSTRACT
Nurse-Family Partnership © (NFP) is a program of prenatal and infancy/toddler home visiting by nurses for low-income mothers bearing first children. NFP nurses work with mothers, fathers, and other caregivers to address three goals: 1) to improve pregnancy outcomes, 2) to improve children’s health and development, and 3) to improve maternal health and economic self-sufficiency. NFP is grounded in developmental epidemiology, and theories of human attachment, human ecology, and self-efficacy.
Nurses deliver this program because they have strong interdisciplinary expertise to address the multitude of factors that influence maternal and child health; they are trusted by pregnant women and caregivers; and are the most widely trusted profession in US society.
Nurse-Family Partnership’s enduring success can be attributed to its alignment with our shared human drive to protect our children, and by nurses’ developing caring, respectful relationships with mothers and other caregivers that elicit and support that drive. By working with mothers during pregnancy and early years of the child’s life, NFP nurses capitalize on the unique opportunities presented at this critical period in human development – when changes in maternal roles and neuroendocrine systems affect maternal and child health over the life-course. Program content and methods leverage these opportunities.
