PRAMS
Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System
What is PRAMS-Ireland?
Each year, an estimated 70,000 women give birth in Ireland. There are major gaps in population-based studies characterising the experiences of women before, during and after pregnancy in Ireland, particularly on highly topical subjects such as intimate partner violence, substance abuse, and mental disorders. To address these gaps, the NPEC proposes to collect data using the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS).
The PRAMS was originally designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States (http://www.cdc.gov/prams/), and the system continues to be widely used to collect population-based data on maternal attitudes and experiences before, during, and after pregnancy. The PRAMS (shown to be effective in design, statistical analyses and translation to practice) represents a novel model for use in Ireland.
The NPEC is currently developing the PRAMS-Ireland to study the impact of maternal experiences on select perinatal outcomes and to identify the complex relationships of maternal and infant characteristics and adverse health outcomes.
Maternal and infant health benefits
The PRAMS allows the opportunity to collect important information on a significant number of mothers in Ireland to determine modifiable factors associated with adverse perinatal outcomes and to identify clinical, public health and policy interventions to improve maternal welfare.