Under Japan’s national policy for child health and development, established in February 2021, the proportion of parents who wish to raise their children in their local community is used as a performance indicator. The policy aims to foster communities that collectively nurture and safeguard children’s healthy development. Maternal loneliness and isolation are key concerns, and support systems are needed to help mothers build local connections [1,2]. Loneliness scales have been applied to parents raising children [3], and social prescribing has been proposed as a policy response to connect mothers with supportive people and resources in their communities [4]. Universal, early-contact programs that reach almost all families may therefore play an important role.

The home visit program for families with infants, known as the Konnichiwa Akachan (Hello Baby) home visit program, was established under the Child Welfare Act in 2009 and has since been implemented nationwide by municipalities. The program visits households with infants up to 4 months of age to listen to parents’ concerns, provide parenting information, assess family needs, and connect families to appropriate services. In Fukushima City, public health nurses and community volunteers each conduct one home visit per infant, and the program is evaluated annually [5]. In this report, we analyze the most recent program evaluation data to examine parents’ willingness to share what they learned from Hello Baby home visits with others as a form of proactive networking.

Of the 449 households eligible for the program, responses were obtained from 173 (response rate: 38.5%). A total of 94.2% of respondents received a visit from a health care professional, and 91.9% received a visit from a community support volunteer. Overall, 69.6% of respondents reported that the visit prompted them to talk with someone (Table 1). The most common conversation partners were their husband (68.2%), their mother (38.2%), and their friend(s) (17.9%).

Reporting that the visit prompted them to talk with someone was significantly associated with perceiving the timing of the visit as appropriate, finding the materials provided to be useful, and obtaining information about the local area. Regarding respondents’ feelings about the visit, feeling listened to by the visitor, experiencing reduced parenting anxiety, gaining confidence in parenting, and welcoming being approached by a known community support volunteer in the local area were all significantly associated with talking with someone as a result of the visit (Table 2).

Our findings suggest that Japan’s Hello Baby home visit program might serve as an opportunity for parents of infants to engage with others in their community. Similar effects of home visiting have been reported in international reviews [7]. Expanding social networks is a core need for mothers, and it is crucial that they realize they do not have to undertake child-rearing entirely on their own [8]. Beginning to talk with others about parenting can be considered a positive sign of recognizing the existing social network. Maternal loneliness is known to be exacerbated by a lack of social support and to increase parenting stress [9]. Even when parents find it difficult to build relationships on their own, face-to-face contact with visitors can help prevent social isolation by facilitating connections with neighbors and the local community. As home visit programs provide opportunities to identify parents’ circumstances, including loneliness [10], and link them with social support, their role is likely to become increasingly important [2].

This study has several limitations. First, because existing program evaluation data were used, detailed participant characteristics could not be assessed, and in-depth analyses were not possible. Second, the analysis relied on single-year survey data from one municipality, with a response rate below 40%, which limits generalizability. Respondents might have been somewhat more engaged with the program than nonrespondents, which could have influenced the overall pattern of responses. Further epidemiological studies in Japan are needed to examine the impact of home visit programs on parents’ social connectedness [11].