Section 1 of this bibliography, Guidelines for Health Promotion in Prenatal Care, covers guidelines on the content of prenatal care. Section 2 Health Promotion in Prenatal Care includes selected works, primarily from the last 10 years, on the content of the health promotion component of conventional prenatal care and effects on birth outcomes. Section 3 Health Promotion Outside Prenatal Care includes selected works on perinatal health promotion delivered outside of medical settings. This section 3 was last updated in 1997. The birth outcome of primary interest is low birth weight.
Prematurity is a closely related outcome.
This 1998 update addresses additional interim outcomes of perinatal health promotion reflecting an emerging broader view of prenatal care as gateway to women's health care over the life span. It should be noted that the terms health promotion and education are not precisely used in the literature on preconception, pregnancy and prenatal care. Researchers use the terms information, advice, counseling, education, and health promotion interchangeably. An effort has been made to use the terms as the writers use them. For the purposes of this document, health promotion refers to education, information giving, and other activities to promote healthy behaviors and to assure that the pregnant woman's autonomy is both empowered and informed.