Healthcare Home Visits to New Parents Shows Positive Effect

26, 2016 -- A home visit program for new parents helped reduce their use of medical services for their infants, a new study finds. The research included 244 first-time parents living in New Mexico. The parents were randomly assigned to either a control group that received no additional help, or were enrolled in a program in which health care workers and parent educators made home visits during the infant's first year. Some infant home visit programs use only nurses, but this approach may not work in some areas due to nurse shortages and the high cost of using nurses only, the researchers said.