Adjusting to motherhood: maternity care assistance during the postpartum period: how to help new mothers cope.

The overall aim of postpartum care is to detect health problems of the mother and/or baby at an early stage, to encourage breastfeeding and to give families a good start. This paper presents an overview of recent literature about postpartum care in several developed countries and elaborates on the Dutch model, which consists of professional postnatal care, provided by MCAs (maternity care assistants), who are supervised by midwives. The most important tasks of the maternity care assistant are, by becoming part of the family for a number of hours each day, being able to detect possible health problems, and to instruct, observe, and support the mother (and father) in establishing a new routine in their family life and help them to become confident in their parenting. (aut.ref.)