Expecting Something Better

Misra and Grason, 2005

Expecting Something Better

Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health

May 18-19, 2005

Washington, DC


Achieving Safe Motherhood:Applying a Life Course and

Multiple Determinants Perinatal Health Framework

Dawn Misra, University of Michigan School of Public Health

and Holly Grason,

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health


Introduction

• Safe Motherhood– “…ensuring that all women receive the care

they need to be safe and healthy throughout pregnancy and childbirth.”

(www.safemotherhood.org)

• Maternal mortality has dropped but rates remain above many other nations.

• New recognition of significance of maternal morbidities.


Background

• Women postponing childbearing– Older mothers at increased risk of maternal

morbidity and mortality.• Chronic diseases increase with age.• Longer duration of chronic disease increases toll.• Healthy older mothers experience increased rates

of antenatal and intrapartum complications.


Background

• Overweight and obesity increasing over past 25 years and has risen each year.

• Increased rates overweight and risk for overweight among children and adolescents.


Background

• Obese women at increased risk for maternal morbidity and mortality.

• Pregnancy may contribute to obesity in women and hence future morbidity and mortality.


Background

• Maternal age and obesity trends lead to focus on role of chronic disease.– Pregnancy may exacerbate chronic disease.– May be long term effects of pregnancy

complications on women’s health.


Framework

• Proposed framework for perinatal health integrating life span with multiple determinants.

• Perinatal encompassed both maternal and offspring outcomes– Focus here will be maternal outcomes.

Misra, Guyer, and Allston, 2003



Framework

• Focus on distal and proximal factors that represent exposures beyond prenatal period alone.

• Emphasizes that strategies to address these factors must be across life course,– preconceptional and interconceptional– childhood and adolescence


Why have we not shifted efforts towards life course perspective?

• Public health and clinical professionals wedded to notion that prenatal care is fundamental to continued improvements.

• Financing of health care and funding of public health interventions have engendered continued entrenchment in prenatal care model.


Strategies Our Purpose

Framework provides strong rationale for life course perspective

BUT

demands attention to strategies

that will overcome existing barriers.

H. Grason, Achieving Safe Motherhood: Applying a Lifecourse and Multiple Determinants Framework to Perinatal Health, 2005.

H. Grason. Applying a Lifespan Approach to Safe Motherhood Interventions. Presented at “Expecting Something Better” Jacobs Institute conference. Washington, DC. May 2005.


H. Grason. Applying a Lifespan Approach to Safe Motherhood Interventions. Presented at “Expecting Something Better” Jacobs Institute conference. Washington, DC. May 2005.


Strategy Options

• Information strategies

• Administrative strategies

• Financing strategies

• Provider strategies

• Non-governmental strategies

• Environmental


Information Strategies

– To reach population at risk, providers, and those who influence larger system.

– Examples• Interventions to package information differently.• Use different venues for communicating info to

women across lifespan• Information transfer across health specialties for

individual women and over time• Data-driven policy change

– Utilizing publicly reported performance data


Administrative Strategies

– Changing current categorical, disease- and population-defined organizational schemes and practices of state and local health agencies.

– Examples• Chronic disease activities are administered independent of

MCH programming. Could configure differently to reflect multiple deteriminants and life course framework.

• Implementing targeted interventions in non-traditional settings such as colleges and workplaces.

– Need new linkages between public health efforts and institutions where women spend their time.


Provider Strategies

– Medical specialists beyond obstetricians (e.g. endocrinologists, cardiologists) could attend to pregnancy and childbirth issues.

– Pediatricians could enhance and extend prevention counseling.

– Approaches:• Medical school and residency training changes.• Pursue changes that do not depend on clinicians.

– Coaches of sports teams? Personal trainers?


Nongovernmental Strategies

– Could be community based• Church congregations• Girl Scouts

– Methods used frequently include mass market media.• “Entertainment Education” -- Integrating purposeful

messages into media and entertainment sources.• Research demonstrating effectiveness in behavior change.• Examples

– New Zealand integrating nutrition information into TV shows.

– Food on the Run program training high schoolers about nutrition, physical activity and media advocacy.


Environmental Strategies

– These strategies often implemented through regulation.

• Very effective in addressing tobacco use.

– Growing interest in urban planning and community design as ways to influence physical activity.


Obesity Strategies by Life StageFigure 3

• Girls in Childhood

• Adolescent Girls

• Young Women in their 20s


Obesity Strategies by Life Stage

• Girls in Childhood– Communities

• Making environments where children live safe and amenable to physical activity.

• More opportunities for girls in sports.

– Provider settings• Role of genetic and familial factors assessed by

pediatricians.• Anticipatory guidance and health monitoring of

body weight by pediatricians.



• Girls in Childhood– School setting

• Foods offered in school settings.• Exercise opportunities.• Including obesity prevention information in health

education curricula.– Example: Breastfeeding Education for K-12



• Adolescent Girls– Different influences (peers rather than only

families) on behavior and different activities and places where spend time.

– School settings• Include peer support groups.• Include health education messages about links

between obesity and problems with maternal and infant health.

• Breastfeeding education.



• Adolescent Girls– Provider settings

• Need to begin to focus on woman-centered information transfer approach.

• Pediatric histories need to be relayed to family practice and internal medicine physicians and reproductive health providers.



• Young Women in their 20s– Woman centered lifecourse approach calls for

different foci of interventions and venues for communication than for young girls and teens.

• College campuses• Workforce



• Young Women in their 20s– Provider settings

• Might expand provider base for health interventions to include coaches, athletic club/gym staff.

• Assuring information transfer across providers and over time continues to be important.

– Young women change providers often.– Use multiple providers at once.– Tailoring chronic disease management to pregnancy.


Conclusions

• Lifespan approach demands attention to consistency and continuity with respect to health information and health care.

• As continuity of care no longer appears possible, patient-based approaches complemented by population-based approaches to reach women across life course are critical for Safe Motherhood.

Expecting Something Better

Documents

financing of health

safe motherhood interventions

life course perspective

life span

maternal morbidities

maternal outcomes

increased rates overweight

role of chronic disease