What could be better for children than to know that even before their births their mothers took advantage of programs that worked toward their optimum health? Research reveals that there are racial disparities between African American women and other cultures in the area of infant mortality and low birth weight babies; with African American women on the West Side of Chicago having a harder time seeing their pregnancies to term and delivering healthy babies.
In 2005, there were 12 infant deaths for every 1,000 births in four community service areas, compared with slightly more than 14 in 2004. In 2005, 14.5 percent of infants born in the areas weighed less than 5 pounds, 8 ounces, which is considered low birth weight; this compared to 15.5 percent of the infants born in 2004.
ACCESS patient Khadijah Farrakhan and son Messiah Nasir bond during a nurturing moment.
Access Community Health Network’s Westside Healthy Start Program (WHSP) works with high-risk pregnant women in the Austin, North Lawndale, and East and West Garfield Park communities to ensure that all babies are born at acceptable birth weights and that they are protected in myriad ways.
The Westside Healthy Start Program means just that: providing a healthy start, by first encouraging women to visit a healthcare provider (doctor or midwife) as soon as they suspect they are pregnant. An initial examination is given to assess the patient physically, as well as to determine whether the patient is at high medical or social risk. High-risk factors include substance abuse or alcoholism, prior miscarriages or premature births, signs of depression, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, weak family support systems, and homelessness, among other things.
If patients are deemed at risk, they are assigned a case manager who works with them throughout the pregnancy and postpartum to provide resources that include prenatal care, health education, linkage to alcohol and substance abuse treatment, and other medical, cultural, behavioral and social support services.
“Many of the women in the program have social issues that may affect health outcomes in the long run,” said program manager Timika Reeves. “Westside Healthy Start Program is an integrated medical case management program, with a strong social service component that aims to improve the health and well being of the entire family.”
CHARLES LAMPLEY, OB/GYN at ACCESS Kling Professional Medical Center, second left, participates in a CenteringPregnancy® group session with group participants and Peg Dublin, ACCESS Senior Manager, Maternal Child Health Programs.
The WHSP has been around for more than 10 years and throughout the years the program has adapted deliverables to address new concerns, Reeves said. “A new component ‘Start Out Healthy’ was implemented because we wanted to improve on the rates of women beginning prenatal care in their first trimester. The Start Out Healthy campaign includes a marketing campaign, with bus shelter signs
encouraging women to seek prenatal care as soon as they learn they are pregnant. In addition, the campaign involves training WHSP alumni to become community health workers who can spread the important messages of WHSP to their friends, neighbors and other community members.
“We hope to have better birth outcomes and healthier pregnancies, but we also make sure we address a mother’s postpartum needs as well,” Reeves added.
To this end, case managers work with mothers after they give birth to ensure that newborns stay healthy with regular well child visits. These visits, held both at the health center and at home, monitor the newborn’s developmental progress, as well as offer recommended vaccinations.
CenteringPregnancy® is also a part of the WHSP. This is a group model of prenatal care that integrates assessment with the provider, education, and peer support. This innovative model has shown remarkable improvements in lowering rates of premature births, increasing rates of breastfeeding and lowering rates of repeat pregnancies within the first six months. Women involved in this model prefer it to traditional models, as they have more time with their provider and are able to tackle similar problems with other women, which empowers them and encourages bonding within the group.
The WHSP encourages women to get annual pap smears and adapt healthy lifestyles, and they are encouraged to space their pregnancies at least 18 to 24 months, the suggested time period between births. “We are empowering women in these areas to become self-sufficient,” Reeves added.
In the future, a male involvement program will be implemented to make sure the entire family is working together for healthy outcomes for the newborn. “We will eventually provide males with linkages to expungment, job placement and educational services, in an effort to ensure that the family unit is bonded, and the male and female involved work together for the benefit of the child, even if they are no longer a couple,” said Reeves. “We are going against the historical practice that dictated that only women who didn’t have males in the household received assistance. We are trying to bring the male back into the picture.”
The Westside Healthy Start Program is offered at the Madison Family Health Center, Westside Family Health Center, ACCESS Kling Ob/Gyn, Warren Family Health Center, West Division Family Health Center, Austin Family Health Center and ACCESS at Bethany; all located on the West Side. Funding is provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Maternal and Child Health Bureau, and additional partners include PCC Wellness, Haymarket Center, Lawndale Christian Health Center and Circle Family Care.
Access Community Health Network is comprised of 50 Joint Commission accredited community health centers throughout Chicago and surrounding suburbs. It provides high quality, cost-effective, safe, comprehensive primary and preventive health care to more than 210,000 individual patients annually, one-third of whom are uninsured. Visit the Web site at accesscommunityhealth.net.
For more information about ACCESS health centers or other programs in your community, please call Elaine Hegwood Bowen, Media Coordinator, at 773.257.6599; email: bowen@accesscommunityhealth.net or call the toll-free number at 1.866.88.ACCESS.