First Webinar on Developing Integrated Systems of Care for Women of Reproductive Age Coming Soon!

We are excited to announce the first webinar in a series of six focused on integrating systems of care for women of reproductive age. The series launches on March 16 from 12-1 EST. Our first speaker is Dr. Samantha Meltzer-Brody, Director of the UNC Perinatal Psychiatry Program. She will focus on screening and treating women of reproductive age, particularly those who are planning a pregancy, are pregnant or are new mothers, for mental health and substance abuse issues. She will highlight some innovative practices and also discuss the integration of contraceptive health issues and breastfeeding. More information about the session is posted on our website under initiatives - WISH. Registration is free and also available on our website. The presentation will be archived and remain available on our site - slides should be posted soon!

Interconception Webinar is a Hit

We still can't believe that we had almost 300 people listen in to our webinar last week on Interconception Health for High-Risk moms. The response to this topic and to the webinar series has been wonderful. Clearly there is a significant interest in sharing ideas and practices in providing services and support to this important and under-served population.

If you missed the webinar, you can see all the slides on the EveryWoman Southeast website. Feel free to email or call the speakers directly if you have questions about their presentations. We'd also love to hear from you if you've been working with these moms. Please email Sarah at sarahv@med.unc.edu.

A special shout out to our wonderful speakers - especially Juanita Graham from Mississippi who called in while snowed in at home with her power set to go out. Now that is dedication!

We're currently working with the NC Institute for Public Health and the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health to launch a free 6 part series that focuses on integrative community approaches to optimizing mental and physical health among adolescents and women of reproductive age. The Women's Integrated Systems of Health (WISH) project has information about their work and the series on our website. Just click on Initiatives and then WISH.

In the meantime, don't forget to register for the 3rd National Summit on Preconception Health and sign up for our listserv.

Update from South Carolina

As we look back over 2010, South Carolina can be proud to have taken great strides in advancing preconception health. Consortia across the state have met to identify stakeholders, classify relevant data and brainstorm plans that will be promoted in each of its perinatal regions in 2011. Stakeholders in each region included professionals from all areas of MCH. Policy makers, nurses, social workers, OB/GYNS and health educators have rallied around the promotion of preconception health and the core ideas of Every Woman Southeast.

Using birth certificate and PRAMS data, MPH graduate student Stewart Davis uncovered interesting information about the four different perinatal regions. For example, the Pee Dee and Low Country regions have significant numbers of women of childbearing age who are overweight and obese. They also have challenges with gestational diabetes. The Piedmont region has the highest prevanlence of women who smoke during pregnancy as well as slightly higher rates of women who have chronic hypertension.

To learn more about South Carolina's consortia meetings and outcomes, go to the South Carolina webpage on the EveryWomanSoutheast.com website. Special thanks to Stewart Davis for serving as a guest blogger! Stewart's career goal is to create policies that will develop and fund programs to reduce the non-white infant mortality rate in South Carolina.

The History of "Every Woman"

On our just completed first webinar (yeah) we provided some brief information as to the origin of our name "Every Woman Southeast". We thought it might be good to share a bit more information about it here - to be sure to give credit where credit is due. Back in the early 1990s when the National Committee on Perinatal Health (COPH) was meeting to develop the recommendations for the report "Toward Improving the Outcome of Pregnancy: The 90s and Beyond" (TIOP II, 1993) there was substantial interest in preconception care. During the meetings the following recommendation emerged... "The COPH recommends a new strategy to reach each woman of childbearing age with reproductive awareness messages at every health encounter. The goal is to reach all women from menarche to menopause with reproductive health promotion and health education. Reproductive awareness dialogue at every encounter will facilitate knowledge of risks, healthy behaviors, and family-planning options. This will empower the individual to take charge of her reproductive future." When the TIOP was rolled out, this recommendation was called "every woman, every time" in the press release. Arlene Cullum and Kiko Malin from California deserve much credit for popularizing the term "every woman" for preconception health work. Thank you to Arlene, Kiko and the many founding mothers and fathers who have helped create this wonderful new movement.

Webinar on November 4th

Every Woman Southeast will be hosting our first webinar on November 4th, 2010 from 12-1:30pm EST. We have a great line up of speakers who will present a wide variety of options for groups to consider in organizing themselves to promote women's wellness / preconception health. This information is relevant to groups interested in organizing at a state level as well as those trying to organize at a more local level. One of the biggest opportunities that the preconception health movement offers is the chance to bridge gaps and form new partnerships to work together toward some common goals. Of course this is MUCH easier said than done. The webinar offers the opportunity to hear how three states, one national organization and our Every Woman Southeast Initiative have approached this challenge.

Interested in joining us? Please do - you can register by going to our website. The box in the bottom right corner of our site will take you to information about the speakers, their slides and the login link. At this point we don't know if we can archive the webinar. We'd like to but aren't sure just yet if it is technically and financially feasible. We also are not offering CEUs for this webinar although we will investigate doing so for future webinars.

We owe a BIG thank you to the March of Dimes for working with us to host the webinar - couldn't do it without them. As of Friday at 1pm we have over 125 participants registered...with hopefully more to follow.

Sign up and join us!

We're Live!

Our new website www.everywomansoutheast.org went live on Sunday October 10, 2010! While being on the web is a great step, the challenge will be keeping our website current and relevant, as well as making sure people know it exists. For that we need everyone's help. If you see errors or broken links let us know. If you have resources or updates for us to post - please send them to us. You can email Sarah at sarahv@med.unc.edu or post a comment below.

Having trouble getting to the site? It might be a little confusing with our blog being a dot com and the site being a dot org. But we'll make it happen. The blog is featured on the homepage of the site. If you've landed on our blog first - click on the link above and you should be at the website. Please bookmark it as a favorite and come back.

Still having trouble? You might need to clear your browser history and cache then shift and reset. That should work. If not, post a comment and we'll figure it out.

Thanks everyone - happy reading!

Momentum

The Every Woman Southeast Initiative has been very busy since our last post. Our leadership team has met by conference call several times a month over the summer into early fall. It's amazing what you can get done by phone!

Together we've put together the content for our new website - www.everywomansoutheast.org - which we hope to launch within a week or so. The website will have alot of information about our Initiative as well as updates on the preconception health related activities underway in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Mississippi. We have current news and information about preconception health related resources from around the country.

We have also organized our first webinar to be held on Thursday November 4th from 12 to 1:30 EST. The March of Dimes is helping us host that call - stay tuned for the weblink. The webinar will provide examples of ways that several states in the Southeast have organized around preconception health.

Finally, we've developed goals, aims and activities for our first collaborative project. In light of the fact that over 12% of women in the Southeast have birth to conception intervals of 6 months or less, we thought that focusing on reducing short birth intervals and improving postpartum visit utilization would be a good place to start. Now to just find the right partner to provide us with the resources to take our next steps.

Other members of the leadership team have agreed to become bloggers which will be fun as well as offering our readers a wide variety of perspectives on working together to improve the health of women and their children.