Empowering Black women with knowledge to help them avoid premature deliveries and pregnancy related complications is among the goals of an initiative at the Harvey-based Family Christian Health Center Maternal Child Health & Wellness Center.
The center completed a pilot CenteringPregnancy program last month that it is now making available to more of its patients. The program brings pregnant women with similar due dates together in a small group setting to provide interactive learning sessions featuring games and guest speakers.
Women discuss and learn about pregnancy topics including nutrition, body changes, current and expected discomforts, stress and anxiety, fetal development, labor and delivery, breast feeding, newborn care and postpartum depression. They also learn to take a proactive role in their own care.
“We teach them to take their blood pressure and check their weight and give them a book so they can log” the information, said registered nurse and nurse educator Deadre Domer. “We make them active partners in their care.”
After taking their blood pressure, the women are provided with a healthy snack to reinforce nutrition and go back into a learning circle to participate in activities designed to stimulate conversation.
The program targets women who are 16- to 20-weeks pregnant. Sessions take place for two hours once a month for four months, and then every two weeks. Near the end of their pregnancy, they come in once a week just for regular fetal checks until they deliver, Domer said.
During the centering sessions, the women have individual time with a physician, who does a belly check, listens for fetal heart tones, goes over their lab results and answers questions. The doctor remains on hand for the entire two-hour session to answer questions and discuss concerns the women may think of later, said Domer.
Domer communicates to participants the goal “is to get them to full-term with their pregnancy, which is 37 weeks plus, and provide them with information to manage their care.
“We want to empower them to take care of themselves, to be aware of signals that their body gives them and to know what they are, to get them to communicate,” Domer said. “That is key. You have to let people know what’s going on.”
The program seeks to help address a critical need, said Dr. Lisa Green, CEO and co-founder of Harvey-based Family Christian Health Center. It is a federally qualified health center, which means it’s a community-based health care provider and receives federal funds to provide primary care services in underserved areas. It opened the Maternal Child Health & Wellness Center on UChicago Medicine Ingalls Memorial hospital’s campus early last year.
Many African American women in the south suburbs and on the South Side of Chicago don’t have easy access to maternal health care, said Green. Many also have health conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes that can be aggravated by pregnancy and childbirth, putting them and their infants at greater risk, she said.
Nationally, the maternal death rate among Black women is 3.5 times higher than among white women, according to a National Institutes of Health study released last August. Blood pressure and heart disorders are among leading causes. Statistics are worse in Chicago and on the South Side, said Green. The maternal death rate in Chicago was six-times that of white women according to a Chicago Department of Public Health report released in 2019.
For Black women, the higher risk of pregnancy complications and maternal death cuts across socio-economic levels. One factor is that when they raise health concerns, their voices and concerns are too often dismissed and not sufficiently addressed.
Preterm birthrates among Black women nationally are 50% higher than among white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Black infants are four times as likely to die from complications related to low birth weight as compared to white infants, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The centering program gives women a chance to address their concerns with people in a safe space, Green said, including things they don’t have a chance to ask during a typical 20-minute office visit.
“This gives people an opportunity to develop a relationship with people, to realize they have some of the same concerns, to learn from other people and to empower them with enough knowledge so that when they go to the hospital to deliver they know what to expect, Green said. “They know what to ask and they know the importance of their voice.”
Jarriesa Roberts, 25, said she benefited from the program. The Park Forest resident is expecting to deliver her third child this week.
“With my last pregnancy, we didn’t have something like this,” said Roberts. “I felt there were a lot of things I should have asked that I didn’t.”
With her very first pregnancy, she had high blood pressure and had to have an emergency C-section, she shared.
She feels better informed on what to expect when she delivers her baby.
“Since I know more, I can ask more effective questions,” she said.
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Kirshella Sanders, 31, of Hammond, Indiana, who is expecting her fourth child, echoed similar sentiments.
“They had a lot of information for new mothers and for mothers who already have children,” she said. “It was a safe environment to talk amongst everybody in the program and to get things off your mind.”
Family Christian Health Center decided to bring the Centering Health Care Institute CenteringPregnancy program to its patients because of its track record. According to the Boston-based Institute’s website, the patient-centered, evidence-based program, which is in 582 practice sites:
* decreas-es the rate of preterm and low-weight babies
* increas-es breast-feed-ing rates
* leads to bet-ter preg-nan-cy spac-ing.
The centering program also has been shown to near-ly elim-i-nate racial dis-par-i-ties in preterm birth, according to the institute.
Six women completed the pilot program in Harvey. Several new centering sessions have been launched under the expanding initiative, said Domer. Blue Cross Blue Shield is a lead sponsor for the program.
Other services at the center are case management services provided to every obstetrician patient that enters prenatal care there.
“Through assessment and evaluations, our case managers create service plans with our OB patients and provide referrals to community based program through ongoing partnerships,” said marketing manager Wendy Lumpkins.
“We collaborate with our partners to ensure we provide positive outcomes, close care gaps and assist with navigation for resources.”
Among partners are UCM-Ingalls Healthy Baby Network, Aid for Women, Metropolitan Family Services, and Illinois Action for Children.
Lumpkins said they also have an outreach and enrollment specialist available to assist patients with insurance navigation and education, helping eligible, uninsured obstetrician patients apply for emergency medical coverage through the Illinois Medicaid presumptive eligibility for outpatient services program.
Francine Knowles is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown