Baby & You survey data

Baby & You survey data

Baby & You data tables for all birth cohorts and surveys will be posted here as they become available. Baby & You is also committed to developing more in-depth data products that provide more historical and cultural context that can be used by partners to identify and promote meaningful program and policy change for communities in Colorado. If you want to be a part of this work, please consider joining our Partner Advisory Network to help guide Baby & You’s survey and data product development. 

Available data

Weighted results are currently available from Baby & You Survey 1 (typically completed at 3-4 months postpartum) for people who gave birth in 2023. Baby & You intentionally includes greater proportions of birthing people who identify as American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian American/Pacific Islander, and Black/African American in order to collect more representative and useful information for these groups. Survey responses are weighted to the Colorado birth population to adjust for intentional inclusion and differences in response so that Baby & You data is representative of all birthing people living in Colorado. Data are weighted on race, ethnicity, Medicaid status, age, marital status, parity, education, and geography.

Survey 1 includes questions about:

• Breastfeeding initiation, duration, reasons for not breastfeeding or stopping.
• Vaccination perspectives and practices.
• Perinatal mental health, mental health resources, and social support.
• Parental leave and family-friendly workplaces.
• Finances and resource insecurities.
• Perinatal conditions and maternal morbidity.
• Perinatal health care satisfaction and discrimination.
• Doula care.
• Experiences of discrimination in daily life.
• And more! 

You can find a summary of questions across all Baby & You surveys and a folder with files of all the survey instruments for more details. Results from Survey 2 will be available in Spring 2025.

Results

• 2023 Birth Cohort 

Data briefs and publications

• Coming soon! 

What is Baby & You and how do these data fit into the bigger picture?

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Baby & You Survey Program is a series of online surveys for birthing parents of children aged 0-3. CDPHE selects a monthly sample of postpartum people from live birth certificates and recruits these people around 3-4 months postpartum by mail to join an online survey platform. People who enroll complete the first survey at the time of enrollment, then receive additional surveys by email and text message around their baby’s first, second, and third birthdays—a total of 4 surveys. The data we collect helps communities and CDPHE programs and partners to understand the needs and experiences of postpartum people and their families in order to develop and improve programs and policies that address these needs.

Baby & You intentionally includes greater proportions of birthing people who identify as American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian American/Pacific Islander, and Black/African American in order to collect more representative and useful information for these groups. Baby & You data can be broken down for these populations as well as for Hispanic and non-Hispanic White birthing people. Baby & You collects many other demographic variables that allow us to look at perspectives and experiences by maternal age, education, parity, insurance type, income, preferred language, foreign-born status, and more. 

How is Baby & You different from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) and Health eMoms?

Baby & You and PRAMS are both maternal and child health data collection systems operated by CDPHE that use birth certificate records as the sampling frame for their monthly selection of participants that they invite to participate in the system. Baby & You and PRAMS work together to make sure that their samples are mutually exclusive. Both systems contact birthing parents by mail to complete surveys around three-four months postpartum but PRAMS is an extensive mail and telephone survey whereas Baby & You is a series of brief web surveys. PRAMS collects data at only one point in time, but Baby & You enrolls participants in an ongoing survey program that continues up to their child’s third birthday.

Baby & You asks some of the same questions as PRAMS on Survey 1, but the estimates that result may be slightly different due to differences in survey mode and weighting methods. Certain question types that are used in PRAMS, such as matrix questions, are not suitable for web surveys and are modified to work for Baby & You. Web surveys also tend to be less subject to social desirability bias, which can result in higher estimates for behaviors perceived as negative. Differences in weighting methods may also result in small differences in point estimates. When comparing estimates across surveys, make sure to also compare confidence intervals to help assess whether there is a true difference.

The Baby & You program grew from the seeds planted by the Health eMoms program. Baby & You is also an online, longitudinal survey program for postpartum people. Baby & You is different from Health eMoms in its sample design. Whereas Health eMoms, which was a CDPHE program that ran from 2018-2022, randomly sampled postpartum people across the state, Baby & You uses a stratified random sample in order to intentionally include and collect more representative data within the American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian/Pacific Islander, Black/African American birthing people.

How are the data weighted? 

Baby & You data were weighted by iterative proportional fitting, or raking, which balances the sample on key demographic variables to ensure that it is representative of the target population—all eligible births in Colorado. The 2023 birth cohort was weighted on:

• Race. 
• Ethnicity.
• Medicaid status.
• Age. 
• Marital status.
• Parity.
• Education.
• Geography.

What is a confidence interval?

The confidence interval is the range of values that is likely to contain the true population parameter. When making statistical inferences about a population based on information collected from a probability sample, random error can affect estimates obtained from the sample. The confidence interval reflects the uncertainty around the estimate that results from random error.  

How do I request additional aggregate data from Health eMoms?  

Baby & You estimates or de-identified data sets can be requested directly from the Baby & You Program Coordinator and Baby & You Analyst.  

Contacts