Beyond the Nursery: Postnatal Care in the 21st Century.

Postnatal care has been one of the great public health successes of the past century. In 1910, most infants were born at home, and perinatal mortality was high; 1 in 10 US infants died before their first birthday.1 By 1960, the large majority of US births occurred in a hospital, where infants received multiple effective preventive interventions that led to a steep decrease in mortality rates. At that time, newborn preventive interventions were typically provided in a room called the “nursery,” where infants were lined up in row after row, and nurses moved from infant to infant to deliver care; mothers were housed on the postpartum ward, where they recovered from the birth process by resting quietly in bed.Things have changed for the better in the 21st century: the number, scope, and effectiveness of postnatal preventive interventions has continued to expand, whereas infant mortality has continued to decline. …