Frequently Asked Questions
PRAMS (Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System) is a joint research project between the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Our purpose is to find out why some babies are born healthy and others are not. To do this, our questionnaire asks new mothers questions about their behaviors and experiences around the time of their pregnancy. Each year in Missouri, there are hundreds of babies born with serious health problems. Many of these babies die. We need your help to find out why. No matter how your pregnancy went, your answers will help us learn more about ways to improve the chances for future mothers and babies in Missouri.
In addition to receiving a gift for participating, you will help more mothers deliver healthy babies in Missouri. You will also assist health care professionals to improve care for mothers and babies in our state.
Yes—all answers are kept completely private and will only be used to answer questions related to the purpose of this study. All answers given on the questionnaires will be grouped together to give us information on Missouri mothers of new babies. In reports from this survey, no woman will be identified by name.
Many things in a mother's life may affect her pregnancy. These questions try to get the best picture of the new mother's health care and things that happened to her during pregnancy.
Your name was picked by chance, like in a lottery, from the state or jurisdiction birth certificate registry. You are one of a small number of women who were chosen to help us in this study.
Yes! Because of the small number of mothers picked, it is important to have everyone's answers. Every pregnancy is different. To get a better overall picture of the health of mothers and babies in Missouri, we need each mother selected to answer the questions. From the information you give us, we may be able to improve health care for women and children in Missouri. We need to know what went right as well as what went wrong during your pregnancy. Your help is really important to the success of our program.
This is explained in the Methods section of the PRAMS web site page.
Please call us at our toll-free number, 1-866-808-4048, and we will be happy to answer any other questions that you may have about PRAMS. If you prefer to complete the questionnaire over the telephone, please call us on the same number.