SLU/March of Dimes partner in local prenatal care program
Special to the American
Saint Louis University researchers have received a $25,000 grant from the March of Dimes Missouri chapter to take the first steps in changing prenatal care in St. Louis, with the hopes of reducing preterm birth rates.
The researchers will teach nine area health organizations about a new way of caring for pregnant women that replaces the traditional one-on-one obstetric appointments with group appointments that include eight to 10 women.
The CenteringPregnancy group model of care, developed by the Centering Healthcare Institute, is designed to provide patients with more time with their doctors. After an initial evaluation, standard exams for women who don’t have medical complications are conducted within the group setting. Women receive extensive education about prenatal issues and parenting questions and build relationships with a supportive group of peers.
“The group sessions take office visits out of the exam room to provide relevant and meaningful education for the patients,” said Pamela Xaverius, Ph.D., assistant professor of research in the department of community and family medicine at Saint Louis University and principal investigator of the research study.
“Mothers-to-be really benefit from the group discussions and sharing their experiences with one another, too.”
The researchers’ initial goals, to be accomplished with this grant, are to educate the healthcare organizations about the CenteringPregnancy group model of care and how it works, assess their interest level and then identify potential obstacles that would prevent organizations from making the change.
According to Xaverius, in order to halt the rising preterm birth rates and reduce associated racial disparities, doctors and researchers need to examine news ways to provide prenatal care.
“St. Louis city has some of the worst birth outcomes in the nation,” Xaverius says.
“CenteringPregnancy has been shown to reduce preterm birth rates, especially among minorities. Our ultimate goal in this project is to work with providers in improving the care that women need to have a healthy pregnancy and deliver healthy, full-term babies.”
Aaron Hamvas, M.D., chair of the program services committee of the Missouri March of Dimes, said March of Dimes considers CenteringPregnancy to be “an innovative way to improve prenatal care for pregnant women.”
“Women who get good support and learn to take care of themselves are more likely to have healthy babies,” said Hamvas, who also directs the newborn intensive care unit at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.