Are You Registered?

The 3rd National Preconception Health Summit is just around the corner. The agenda and registration information are posted at http://www.beforeandbeyond.org/. Check it out! I know times are tight, but the registration fee is only $175 and the current room rates are only $92. The Summit begins officially Sunday evening June 12th and finishes up at the end of the day on June 14th. In addition to excellent plenary sessions, the Summit includes alot of work sessions and many networking opportunities. Every Woman Southeast will have a display booth and will be part of a break out session panel.

I attended the 2nd National Preconception Summit in California a few years ago. I came home with a lot of new ideas. I was also impressed at the energy around the importance of working with policies, the environment, local communities, health care providers and public health leaders to support women of reproductive age in being as healthy as they can be and in planning and reaching for their goals in life. I hope to see you at the Summit in June!

Learn about HRSA's New Bright Futures for Women's Health Initiative

On April 6th Sabrina Matoff-Stepp and Anna Kindermann from the Office of Women's Health at HRSA will share information on the new Bright Futures for Women's Health Initiative. This presentation is part of our Women's Integrated Systems for Health (WISH) webinar series. The presentation will be recorded and available for viewing a few days after the webinar.

The first webinar in the series went very well. The slides and speaker bio are posted on our website. Free access to the archived webinar will be available shortly. Dr. Melzter-Brody made many key points about the critical and overlapping issues that impact women of reproductive age, particularly those who are pregnant, postpartum and new mothers.

Why does all of this matter? As the preconception movement grows into the women's health initiative that it is meant to be, we all need to think about weaving our different work and projects together to meet the needs of the whole woman.

Is your project doing this? Tell us how!

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!