Visits to medical practitioners in the first 6 months of life

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To assess the use of medical practitioners' services by mothers and their babies in the 6 months following childbirth. METHODOLOGY: Aggregated Medicare data detailing medical practitioner services provided to a random sample of 650 Victorian babies born between 1 March and 31 May 1993 and their mothers were obtained from the Health Insurance Commission. This provided data on services provided between March and December of 1993 to the selected cohort. Services provided by the public hospital system to mothers and babies are not included. RESULTS: Mothers and babies in the sample used 6404 medical practitioner services in the 6 months following birth; 57% of services were to babies,..