Prenatal and
Infant Health Care

Why is this important?

The health care our babies receive, both before and after birth, influences the subsequent state of their health. Therefore, measuring the health of a community is intimately connected with the health of pregnant mothers and the practices employed during the most impressionable periods of child-rearing.

What is the measure?

Using prenatal care attendance covering a two-year period, we can determine the care our pregnant women are receiving. Child safety seat use is an important indicator of the safety practices of our children given the often dangerous rural roads.

How are we doing?

Between 2001 and 2003, a larger percent of Tuolumne County pregnant women received prenatal care during the first trimester than most California pregnancies. Attendance fell off during the remaining months; only 73% achieved “adequate” or “betterthan- adequate” prenatal care,⁴ compared with 78% of California pregnancies.⁵ Between 2003 and 2004, 8% of Tuolumne County pregnant women admitted to alcohol or drug use, and 13% of those women smoked.⁶

When discharged from the hospital in 2003, 89% of mothers were breast feeding their infants. Three months later, only 59% of mothers followed by Health Department programs were still breast feeding.⁷ The Tuolumne County teen pregnancy rate⁸ is approximately equal with that of culturally and racially matched groups throughout California.⁹

Nationally, motor vehicle crashes are the number one killer of children over age one.¹⁰ In Tuolumne County, the child restraint system was shown to be properly installed in the automobile in only 32% of those transporting children, and nearly 50% of all car seats and booster seats had serious installation errors.¹¹