Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Prenatal Care and Complications of Pregnancy
- Part II Preventing Prematurity
- Part III New Findings and Long-term Evidence on Intrauterine Growth Restriction
- Part IV Preventing and Treating Birth Defects
- Part V Prenatal Care as an Integral Component of Women's Health Care
- 12 Opportunities for improving maternal and infant health through prenatal oral health care
- 13 Family planning: need and opportunities
- 14 Maternal–fetal conflict is not a useful construct
- 15 Linking prenatal care with women's health care
- 16 A European perspective on prenatal care: an integrated system
- Epilogue
- Index
16 - A European perspective on prenatal care: an integrated system
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Prenatal Care and Complications of Pregnancy
- Part II Preventing Prematurity
- Part III New Findings and Long-term Evidence on Intrauterine Growth Restriction
- Part IV Preventing and Treating Birth Defects
- Part V Prenatal Care as an Integral Component of Women's Health Care
- 12 Opportunities for improving maternal and infant health through prenatal oral health care
- 13 Family planning: need and opportunities
- 14 Maternal–fetal conflict is not a useful construct
- 15 Linking prenatal care with women's health care
- 16 A European perspective on prenatal care: an integrated system
- Epilogue
- Index
Summary
Introduction
The ultimate success of a system of care for women and children that is designed to safeguard the health of women during pregnancy, improve birth outcomes, and ensure the healthy development of young children is critically dependent on its comprehensiveness. To meet its goals at a societal level, it must encompass women of childbearing age and their children at all socioeconomic levels, and it must address the full range of their health concerns and determinants.
The preceding chapters of this book have addressed successes and limitations of prenatal care in the United States. This chapter will present an example of a European system of prenatal care, specifically the French system, which strives to meet this goal of comprehensiveness. In France, prenatal care is generally linked to postpartum care and pediatric services for young children, and will therefore be discussed here under the umbrella of “perinatal” rather than “prenatal” care.
Western European countries are inclined to present their public health policies as a model, based on their commitment to the health of pregnant women and infants. It is useful to ask whether the achievements of these policies justify this characterization. This chapter attempts to answer this question by describing the French system, and reviewing its accomplishments as well as its limitations. In doing so, we hope to present a useful comparison to the American system.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Prenatal CareEffectiveness and Implementation, pp. 315 - 326Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999