KDHE Reports on First State Survey of Birth Mothers

KDHE

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) has released its first annual report from the Kansas Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS). The 2017 PRAMS Summary provides information from women who are interviewed about their experiences before, during and shortly after pregnancy. Forty-seven states participate in the PRAMS survey, covering approximately 83 percent of all live births in the United States. Kansas joined the PRAMS project in 2016 and began data collection in 2017. Read the full report here.

Some notable findings from the 2017 Kansas PRAMS survey include:
• Two-thirds of mothers (67.0%) had a health care visit in the year before their pregnancy.
• More than 4 in 5 mothers (85.7%) received prenatal care during the first trimester of pregnancy.
• Almost 1 in 8 mothers (12.4%) exhibited signs of having depression in the 2 to 3 months after giving birth.
• Nearly 3 in 4 mothers (72.6%) had experienced at least one stressful life event during the year before delivery.
• Approximately 9 in 10 infants (90.1%) had been breastfed or fed breast milk, even if only for a short period of time.
• Most mothers reported placing their infants to sleep on the infant’s back most frequently (80.2%), versus on his/her side, stomach, or a combination of back, side, and/or stomach.