Factors influencing the first thousand days of life. The importance of Nurturing Care

BACKGROUND: WHO, Unicef, the World Bank and the Maternal and Child Health Partnership wrote the document “Nurturing care for early child development: a global framework action”. This paper highlights the benefits of early intervention and thus the need to invest more in health during this period. The aim of our study is to assess how much social support received by pregnant mothers can influence maternity outcomes. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The retrospective observational study was conducted on a sample of mothers enrolled via social networks, who were administered a questionnaire from 1 July to 1 September 2021. The questionnaire consisted of 37 questions, 6 of which were used to calculate the “Maternity Social Support Scale”. The ODDs Ratio was calculated. RESULTS: Our sample consisted of 3447 women. 59.01% were between 26 and 35 years of age. The mean Maternity Social Support Scale (MSSS) score was calculated to be 23.9 points. A low MSSS score correlated with a higher probability of stopping breastfeeding before 6 months of age (OR: 1.2; CI:1.1-1.4) and of having a caesarean section (OR: 1.2; CI: 1.1-1.4) and to a lower probability of having a spontaneous labour (OR: 0.9; CI: 0.7-0.9) and a spontaneous delivery (OR: 0.8; CI: 0.7-0.9). In contrast, a high MSSS score had a lower likelihood of ceasing breastfeeding before 6 months (OR: 0.8; CI: 0.7-0.9) and caesarean section(OR: 0.8; CI: 0.7-0.9) and higher likelihood of spontaneous onset labour (OR: 1.2; CI: 1.1-1.3) and spontaneous delivery (OR: 1.2; CI: 1.1-1.4). CONCLUSIONS: Pregnancy, childbirth and maternity outcomes are strongly influenced and conditioned by the social context in which they occur and the support the woman may receive. The presence or lack of this support may affect the health of newborns.