Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education for Expectant and New Mothers: The 30-Month Impacts of MotherWise

Many healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs serve individual adults rather than couples. Such programs aim to help participants form and maintain healthy romantic relationships and avoid unhealthy relationships, regardless of their relationship status. However, there is little rigorous evidence on the ability of HMRE programs for individual adults to improve participants’ outcomes and none on the ability of these programs to improve outcomes over the longer term. To help build the evidence base on the diverse set of HMRE programs serving individual adults, this study examines MotherWise, a relationship skills program for women with low incomes who are pregnant or have just had a baby, and its impacts on women’s outcomes 30 months after study enrollment.