Clinical and Demographic Characteristics of Patient-Initiated Encounters Before the 6-Week Postpartum Visit.

Objective: To identify characteristics associated with a higher likelihood of patient-initiated encounters with a health care professional before the scheduled 6-week postpartum visit.

Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study of postpartum persons who received prenatal care and delivered at a single academic level IV maternity care center in 2019. We determined associations between maternal sociodemographic and obstetric characteristics and the likelihood of patient-initiated early postpartum encounters with χ tests for categorical variables and Wilcoxon rank sum tests for continuous and ordinal variables.