The Fort Lewis maternity care project: a pioneering program for enlisted military families in a Prewar Washington State Community.

The Fort Lewis maternity project begun in Tacoma, Washington in 1941, was considered a pioneering project that met the identified maternal/child health care needs of enlisted military families. From the outset, local medical leaders as well as Children's Bureau advisors intended that the project would provide physician-managed pregnancy as well as hospital births and that public health nursing would play a critical role in this maternal/child initiative. The project proved so successful that the model of care established under this program was reinterpreted to meet similar needs for military families in other states as America entered World War II.