Younger women are less likely to seek primary care for ongoing conditions in the first 100 days following childbirth than older women.
A cross-sectional study from the Royal College of General Practitioners used electronic health records from primary care settings to find the most common clinical events or health needs among women in the first 100 days after birth.
The records were from women aged 16-49 who had given birth between 2006 and 2016. A total of 925,712 contacts were identified following 309,573 births.
Women were most likely to use primary care for postnatal visits, monitoring and to access contraception.
Analysis showed that younger women were more likely to attend for preventative care, but less likely to have contact for ongoing mental and physical symptoms or conditions and pre-existing conditions.
Researchers believe these results show a need for primary care services to match the needs of new mothers for a broad range of planned and responsive care following childbirth.
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