ACOG Committee Opinion on Optimizing Postpartum Care

Because one half of all pregnancy-related maternal deaths occur postpartum, the weeks following childbirth are a critical period for a woman and her infant. In addition, health issues that arise in pregnancy can persist and presage long-term medical problems. In this Committee Opinion, ACOG lays out a new vision for postpartum care, redefining it as an ongoing process beginning within the first 3 weeks postpartum and tailored to a woman’s needs. The document includes practical advice on postpartum care as well as useful charts including a Timeline for Postpartum Care, a listing of The Components of Postpartum Care, and a table identifying Members of the Postpartum Care Team.

Breastfeeding Chronic Disease Depression Reproductive Life Planning/Family Planning

Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention: A guide for public health practitioners

Screening and brief intervention (SBI) is a structured set of questions designed to identify individuals at risk for alcohol use problems, followed by a brief discussion between an individual and a service provider, with referral to specialized treatment as needed. This manual is designed to provide public health professionals, such as health educators and community health workers, with the information, skills, and tools needed to conduct SBI so that they can help at-risk drinkers reduce their alcohol use to a safe amount or stop drinking. The manual offers background information and practical steps for conducting SBI in a variety of public health settings, including trauma centers, emergency departments, other clinical settings, home visits, and public events.

Alcohol/Drug Services Case Management/Care Coordination Risk Assessment

Black Mamas Matter: Advancing the Human Right to Safe and Respectful Maternal Health Care

This toolkit provides a foundation, framework and resources for advancing maternal health in the U.S. as a human rights issue. It provides a research overview of maternal morbidity and mortality, focusing on trends, health disparities and inequities. Based on the deliberations of a cross-sectoral convening of stakeholders it offers a state policy framework for upholding the right to safe and respectful maternal health care, which offers recommendations in six key areas: improving access to reproductive health care, improving quality of maternal health care, ensuring acceptability of maternal health care for women most at risk, ensuring widespread availability of maternal health services, ensuring non-discrimination in access to care and social determinants of health, and fostering accountability to human rights standards for maternal health care.

Case Management/Care Coordination Home Visiting Insurance Coverage Life Course Model Patient-centered Medical Home Prenatal Care and Education Reproductive Life Planning/Family Planning

American College of Nurse-Midwives Position Statement on Screening and Brief Intervention to Prevent Alcohol-Exposed Pregnancy

ACNM encourages CNMs, CMs, and other professionals who provide care for reproductive-aged women to routinely use evidence-based strategies to prevent alcohol exposed pregnancy, including:
–Conduct universal alcohol screening and appropriate follow-up at least annually for all adults. For pregnant women, screen at the initial prenatal visit and during each trimester thereafter.
–Be aware of state reporting laws and potential practice implications regarding the use of ICD-10 codes to indicate alcohol use during pregnancy if recording alcohol exposure in the prenatal problem list.
–Provide education about the potentially harmful effects of alcohol on a developing fetus
–Advise use of effective contraception to prevent pregnancy; if the woman is not using contraception consistently, advise her to consider abstaining from alcohol use.
–Encourage women who are attempting to become pregnant to abstain from alcohol.
–Provide a brief behavioral intervention and appropriate follow-up plan for those who screen positive for symptoms or dependency, including a referral to specialty services as needed.
In addition,CNMs and CMs should seek information and training to enhance their knowledge and build theclinical skills needed to address alcohol use with women, especially those of reproductive age.

Alcohol/Drug Services Prenatal Care and Education

MotherToBaby

MotherToBaby, a service of the non-profit Organization of Teratology Information Specialists, is dedicated to providing evidence-based information to mothers, health care professionals, and the general public about medications and other exposures during pregnancy and while breastfeeding. Talk directly to the experts behind the most up-to-date research!

Alcohol/Drug Services Breastfeeding Prenatal Care and Education

A Public Health Response to Opioid Use in Pregnancy

This policy statement from the AAP advocates a public health response to the opioid epidemic and substance use during pregnancy, and recommends: a focus on preventing unintended pregnancies and improving access to contraception; universal screening for alcohol and other drug use in women of childbearing age; knowledge and informed consent of maternal drug testing and reporting practices;improved access to prenatal care, including opioid replacement therapy; gender-specific substance use treatment programs;and improved funding for social services and child welfare systems.

Alcohol/Drug Services Prenatal Care and Education

Ask the Expert: Improving the health of Women, Children and Men: A Primer on Preventive Services Covered Under the Affordable Care Act

Healthy Start programs are an invaluable resource for women, children and men to increase their understanding of the preventive services covered under the Affordable Care Act. For example, did you know that comprehensive breastfeeding support and counseling from trained providers, and access to breastfeeding supplies, for pregnant and nursing women is a covered benefit under Marketplace health plans at no charge to the client? This webinar will provide an overview of the preventive services that are covered for women, children and men. Given the substantial amount of content to cover the webinar has been divided up into three parts. The first webinar will be live. The two subsequent webinars will be recorded and available for listening shortly following the live webinar.

Objectives:

1. Identify the preventative health services for women (Part I), children (Part II), and men (Part III) available with no co-pay and deductible.
2. Describe access points for the service (Parts I – III)
3. Identify models of payments related to these services and how it might affect access and payment for the services (Part III)
4. Define barriers created by some states/insurers to reduce access to some services (Part III).

Webinar Materials:

Home Visiting Life Course Model Nutrition Parenting Education Prenatal Care and Education Reproductive Life Planning/Family Planning Socio-emotional Development for Children STDs including HIV Tobacco Cessation

Interconception Care Toolkit

The Interconception Care Toolkit modules are designed to enhance users’ knowledge of interconception health related subjects. There are links to internet resources throughout the Modules to help you learn the content. There are questions and scenarios in each Module which will help you use the information you are learning. At the end of each of the Modules, you will be able to quiz yourselves on what you have learned.

Module 1: The Birds, The Bees, The Plan
Part 1 – Helping Your Clients Plan Their Futures and Their Families
Part 2 – Grasping the Basics of Reproduction
Part 3 – Considering If and When to Become Pregnant Again
Part 4 – From Plan to Action: Finding and Using the Right Contraception

Module 2: Weighty Matters: Understanding and Addressing Postpartum Weight Retention in the Interconception Period

Module 3: Chronic Diseases

Module 4: Poor Perinatal Outcomes

Learning Objectives:

By the end of Module 1 (Parts 1-4) you should be able to:

  1. Describe and address some of the common myths about reproduction and reproductive health
  2. Educate your clients about these myths to decrease risky behaviors
  3. Explain basic sexual anatomy and physiology for males and females
  4. Describe the main differences in how three types of contraception work
  5. Use this information to help your clients understand basic reproduction and that methods used to prevent unintended pregnancies may be different than those to prevent STI transmission
  6. Discuss the risks of unintended pregnancies and short interpregnancy intervals (IPI)
  7. Help your clients consider a reproductive life plan
  8. Discuss reproductive coercion and how it impacts reproductive decision making
  9. Navigate the website bedsider.org
  10. Explain key characteristics of the main types of contraception to your clients
  11. Understand and explain failure rates to clients
  12. Help women/couples choose an appropriate contraceptive method for their reproductive plan and their personal characteristics

By the end of Module 2 you should be able to:

  1. Describe recommended and excess maternal weight gains in pregnancy
  2. Define postpartum weight retention
  3. Identify strategies for discussing and addressing postpartum weight retention with interconception women
  4. Provide evidence-based weight loss/maintenance strategies and resources to your clients

By the end of Module 3 (Parts 1-2) you should be able to:

  1. Explain the differences between chronic diseases that predate a pregnancy and pregnancy conditions that may lead to chronic diseases in the future
  2. Discuss why both are important for a woman’s life course and the health of any future pregnancies
  3. Discuss why the interconception period is an important time to address chronic diseases
  4. Support self-management strategies to interrupt the progression of preexisting and developing chronic diseases

By the end of Module 4 you should be able to:

  1. Discuss major causes of poor pregnancy outcomes and who they are most likely to affect
  2. Discuss some of the common psychological and social impacts of poor pregnancy outcomes for women, partners, and other children
  3. Recognize normal and abnormal stages of grief
  4. Provide basic interconception guidance to women who have experienced one or more of several poor pregnancy outcomes

Chronic Disease Depression EBP Implementation Healthy Weight Home Visiting Life Course Model Parenting Education Reproductive Life Planning/Family Planning STDs including HIV

Ask the Expert: Prenatal Care

This webinar will focus on helping Healthy Start team members:
  • Support pregnant participants in making healthy lifestyle choices;
  • Reinforce and clarify the advice and recommendations of participants’ health care providers;
  • Identify and help participants recognize warning signs that mother and/or baby may be at risk; and
  • Help prepare participants for childbirth, breastfeeding, and parenting.

Webinar Materials:

 

Prenatal Care and Education Risk Assessment

Ask the Expert: Preconception Care

This webinar focuses on the basic elements of preconception care and why incorporating them into Healthy Start is essential to fulfilling the mission of decreasing infant mortality. The logistics of recruiting participants who are not pregnant into Healthy Start programs and managing their issues is discussed, along with case studies illustrating ways in which this can be done.

 

Webinar Materials:

Chronic Disease Healthy Weight Insurance Coverage Reproductive Life Planning/Family Planning

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