Speaking to Lusa, the director of the Neonatology Service at Centro Hospitalar Universitário do São João, Henrique Soares, explained that the Return to Home project, which involves, in addition to that hospital, the Groupings of Health Centers (ACES) Porto Oriental and Maia/Valongo and the Alto Minho Local Health Unit (ULSAM), will test the discharging mothers who have already had children and in cases that “obey a series of defined and identified clinical parameters”.

The pilot project “guarantees the safety” of mothers and babies, by providing for a home consultation up to 72 hours after delivery by a neonatologist and a nurse from the Health unit “the same as what would be done” in a hospital.

The safety of the mother and baby “is a priority and is assured”, since the project provides for a specialized home visit: “Up to 72 hours after birth, a home visit will be carried out, with the same parameters and instruments that a visit in a hospital context, and there is a kind of greenway for mothers or babies who need to return to hospital”, explained to Lusa the doctor and president of the Clinical and Health Council of ACES Porto Oriental, Miguel Ornelas.

"In addition to the physical conditions, the team that goes to the home will pay attention to depressive symptoms, the increase in milk, the baby's sleep rhythm and everything that implies the postpartum follow-up of the mother and the baby", explained the doctor.

The goal, he said, is “to create a new normal”, in which the return home for mothers and babies “is faster and safer”.

The experimental phase of this project will last three months.