Tagged With "University of Washington"
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She’s the ‘street doula’ behind the Homeless Humans of Tacoma. ‘They’re just like you and me’ (Tacoma News Tribune)
For roughly 40 years, Patti Ramos was a doula, assisting with more than 3,000 births. Now, Ramos has something new to consume her. There’s no paycheck involved this time — the 66-year-old gets by on Social Security income — but the hours are still long and the connections are still intimate. Today, Ramos, 66 and retired, considers herself a “street doula.” That’s because Ramos is the one-woman force behind the Homeless Humans of Tacoma project . For the last four years, she has spent her...
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So how do you start to think and talk about ACEs and Maternal Mental Health?
Give them an info graphic to show the connection between toxic stress and health outcomes for moms and babies? Check out the attached 3 handouts! Have some talking points ready to get the conversation started with prenatal care staff? ...
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Some 350 Florida Leaders Expected to Attend Think Tank with Dr. Vincent Felitti, Co-Principal Investigator of the ACE Study; Expert on ACEs Science
Leaders from across the Sunshine State will take part in a “Think Tank” in Naples, FL, on Monday, August 6, to help create a more trauma-informed Florida. The estimated 350 attendees will include policy makers and community teams made up of school superintendents, law enforcement officers, judges, hospital administrators, mayors, PTA presidents, child welfare experts, mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, philanthropists, university researchers, state agency heads, and...
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The Developing Brain & Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Thanks to an explosion in scientific research now possible with imaging technologies, such as fMRI and SPECT, experts can actually see how the brain develops. This helps explain why exposure to adverse childhood experiences can so deeply influence and change a child's brain and thus their physical and emotional health and quality of life across their lifetime. The above time-lapse study was conducted over 10 years. The darker colors represent brain maturity (brain development). I have added...
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The prevalence and clinical correlates of adverse childhood experiences in a cross-sectional study of primary care patients with cardiometabolic disease or risk factors (BMC)
From the article: To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the incidence and clinical correlates of ACEs in primary care patients who already have cardiometabolic disease or are at elevated risk based on conventional risk factors. Open Access LINK to article Background Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with risk of poor adult health, including cardiometabolic diseases. Little is known about the correlates of ACEs for adults who have already developed...
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Thrive Washington: 3rd Edition of NEAR@Home Toolkit Released
Thrive Washington is pleased to announce that the 3 rd edition of the NEAR@Home toolkit is now available and offers home visitors more guidance on how to safely, respectfully and effectively address Adverse Childhood Experiences with the families they serve. This new edition reflects what was learned when the toolkit was incorporated into a Facilitated Learning Process with 225 home visitors and 54 supervisors in the four states of federal Region X: Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. It's...
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Trauma-Informed Care as a Universal Precaution: Beyond the Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire [jamanetwork.com]
By Nicole Racine, Teresa Killam, and Sheri Madigan, JAMA Pediatrics, November 4, 2019 Experiences of childhood adversity are common, with more than 50% of adults reporting having experienced at least 1 adversity as children and more than 6% exposed to 4 or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). There is currently a controversial debate in the medical field as to whether the ACEs questionnaire, which asks about abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction before age 18 years, should be...
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‘We are just destroying these kids’: The foster children growing up inside detention centers [Washington Post]
Photo credit and caption: Heard leaves the courtroom at the Boone County Courthouse in Madison. He hopes to train to be a tattoo artist. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Dec. 30, 2019 Though he's never been convicted of a crime, Geard Mitchell spent part of his childhood in a juvenile detention center, at times sleeping on cement floors under harsh fluorescent lights left on through the night during lockdowns. He attended high school by clicking through online courses and had “no one to...
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Hunger Moves to the Suburbs [sfchronicle.com]
By Tara Duggan, San Francisco Chronicle, November 4, 2019 Most people think of people lining up at food pantries and soup kitchens as an urban phenomenon. But in Alameda County, which has one of the highest rates of food insecurity in the Bay Area, an increasing number of people living in the suburbs are also having trouble affording food. That includes Livermore, a city in the Tri-Valley area that’s better known for its wineries. “When people think of homelessness and poverty, they don’t...
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Parental Depression and Its Impact on Child and Family Well-Being [CANTASD]
Parental Depression and Its Impact on Child and Family Well-Being On March 9, 2018, The National Child Abuse and Neglect Technical Assistance and Strategic Dissemination Center ( CANTASD ) hosted a Digital Dialogue with Jessica Dym Bartlett, the Deputy Program Area Director for Early Childhood Development & Child Welfare at Child Trends . The conversation focused on the impact of parental depression on child and family well-being . This [ ARTICLE ] document summarizes the conversation...
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Parental Depression Forecasts Kids' Later Physical Health [news.uga.edu]
By Allyson Mann, University of Georgia Today, October 24, 2019 When parents suffer from depression, kids may be at risk for physical health problems in young adulthood, according to a study from researchers including the University of Georgia’s Katherine Ehrlich. The results revealed an association between parental depression and youth metabolic syndrome—a condition that forecasts substantially increased risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. “The good news is that while parental...
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Where You're Born Even Within a Country Still Matters [npr.org]
By Pien Huang, National Public Radio, October 22, 2019 Better vaccines, nutrition and disease control have cut the global death rate for children in half over the past 20 years. But even within countries that have made major progress, children can face greatly different fates. "Where you're born substantially impacts your probability of surviving to 5," says Simon Hay, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington who is the lead author of a new study on childhood mortality in Nature.
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CMS Issue Brief: Improving Access to Maternal Health Care in Rural Communities
In an ideal maternal health system, all women would have access to comprehensive, seamless medical care with links to behavioral, economic, and social supports. Additionally, they would be engaged with this system before, during, and after pregnancy. Across the United States, many women are not receiving care in this ideal system, and women in rural communities face unique challenges that make it harder for them to reach this ideal or any care at all in some cases. Because maternal health...
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Consequences of Military Sexual Trauma for Perinatal Mental Health: How Do We Improve Care for Pregnant Veterans with a History of Sexual Trauma?
Sharing our recent editorial which includes a call for TIC in maternity care: "Nevertheless, there are ways in which VA may be able to augment the maternity care pregnant veterans receive to empower and facilitate more trauma-informed approaches to obstetric care. These include investing in programs to ensure peer support, possibly through use of mobile health technology; facilitating collaboration with maternity care providers through provision of handheld/electronic maternity records...
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Disparities In Access To Health Care For Women
Disparities in access to health care and outcomes are strikingly different between Blacks and white women, and policy changes being made in Washington will have enormous impacts on women's health . Black women have a much higher risk of pregnancy related complications and deaths a 12 fold higher than white women in New York City, for example. Some is due to poverty and lack knowledge about and access to healthy diets and good care. Read the full article written by Judy Stone: ...
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Facing Postpartum Depression: The Honesty, Courage and Support It Takes to Seek Help for PPD
“Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able” – Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the Yellow Wallpaper, 1892 It is wonderful to see the birth of a child greeted with warm enthusiasm and support. We celebrate the joy of a growing family, and the excitement of a new life. Relatives and friends often provide gifts and extra help. But for some new moms, motherhood brings on many complex emotions besides the happy ones. While we may greet a new baby with happiness and delight –...
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Fairness for Breastfeeding Mothers Act of 2019 Signed Into Law [Cal WIC]
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Fairness For Breastfeeding Mothers Act of 2019’’ A bill just signed into law by President Trump will require federal buildings that are open to the public and have public restrooms to also have designated lactation rooms for breastfeeding. The rooms will be available for use by members of the public as well as federal employees. The Fairness for Breastfeeding Mothers Act ( H.R. 866 ) was sponsored in the House by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and...
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First Round of Grants Awarded from Preventing Maternal Deaths Act [ACOG]
August 16, 2019 Washington, DC -- Ted L. Anderson, MD, PhD, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), released the following statement regarding the announcement by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that 24 awards, supporting 25 states, were made for the Enhancing Reviews and Surveillance to Eliminate Maternal Mortality (ERASE MM) Program: Legislation signed into law in December 2018 funds maternal mortality review committees “The...
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From Treatment to Healing: Inquiry and Response to Recent and Past Trauma in Adult Health Care [Institute of Women's Health]
Abstract: In 2015, a national working group developed and published a conceptual framework for trauma-informed primary care (Machtinger, Cuca, Khanna, Dawson-Rose, & Kimberg, 2015). Since that publication, there has been increasing recognition that childhood and adult trauma underlie and perpetuate many physical and behavioral health conditions seen in health care settings and that addressing trauma could fundamentally improve the experience and efficacy of care for both patients and...
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H.R. 4215 Excellence in Maternal 5 Health Act of 2019
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Introduced in House (08/30/2019) Mr. Bucshon (for himself, Mr. Carson of Indiana, Mr. Burgess , Mr. Bilirakis , Mrs. Brooks of Indiana, Ms. Herrera Beutler , Mr. Long , Mrs. McBath , and Mr. Walden ) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce A BILL To improve maternal health care quality, to improve the training of health care professionals to reduce or prevent discrimination in certain health care services, to...
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ACEs Science Champion Series: Dr. Angela Bymaster: This Faith-Based Physician Integrates ACEs Science with Healing Arts
Dr. Angela Bymaster, a family physician at Washington Elementary School in San Jose, CA, operates her clinic in a portable unit on the school property.
Because the unit faces students as they are dropped off by their families, she gets to “pick up the kids” before they are sent to the clinic, practicing “upstream medicine.”
Comment
Re: Postpartum Depression: Why The Word ‘Should’ Is So Dangerous [HuffingtonPost.com]
Thanks for sharing-we educate our NICU parents about Postpartum Mood Disorders as some people have described increased anxiety, intrusive and unwanted thoughts instead of or in combination with depressive symptoms. We also refer to the statistic (from Perinatal Support Washington) that 1 in 7 women AND 1 in 10 men experience PPMD. Paternal PPMD is real and needs attention as well.
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2020 Mom Founder and Executive Director Joy Burkhard to Serve as Expert Advisor for AHRQ Rural Postpartum Mental Health Challenge (2020MOM)
May 21, 2020, News and Announcements, 2020 MOM & AHRQ Washington, DC – In May, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality ( AHRQ ) announced that Joy Burkhard, MBA was selected to serve as an expert advisor for their Cross-Sectional Innovation to Improve Rural Postpartum Mental Health Challenge. The challenge aims to drive both proposal and narrative submissions, allowing the initiative to highlight success stories in rural postpartum mental health and encourage future innovative...
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Pregnant in a pandemic [washingtonpost.com]
By May-Ying Lam, The Washington Post, June 30, 2020 For women who are pregnant amid a pandemic, a recession and racial turmoil, the future is an anxiety-stirring unknown. They began their pregnancies in the “other world” that promised baby showers, gender-reveal parties, visits with grandparents and browsing stores for onesies. Now, they contemplate how they would handle a novel coronavirus diagnosis, prepare to give birth while wearing a mask and fight through old traumas that the virus has...
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Report on WIC Role in Reducing Maternal Mortality (California WIC Association)
CWA Flash Newsletter - October 13, 2020 (Blue text=hyperlinks) Report on WIC Role in Reducing Maternal Mortality The National WIC Association released a report titled " The Role of WIC in Reducing Maternal Mortality ." NWA’s Maternal Mortality Task Force created the report to consider ways in which maternal mortality is addressed and discussed with program participants throughout the WIC appointment, as well as explore opportunities for additional focus on the topic. The report highlights...
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Jamaa Birth Village & Generate Health Awarded $1 Million to Help Make St. Louis a Safer Childbirth City [stlouis-mo.gov]
From St. Louis Department of Health, March 10, 2021 Thanks to a $1 million grant from Merck for Mothers and the Yellow Chair Foundation, St. Louis has become one of nine Safer Childbirth Cities. The award was granted to Generate Health and Jamaa Birth Village to support the STL 360 Doulas Initiative, a new collaborative to expand access to doula care. The new initiative is a partnership between Jamaa Birth Village, Generate Health, STL Doulas of Color Collective and Jesse Davis, MD, MBA,...
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Blog Post
ICE to avoid detaining pregnant, nursing and postpartum women [washingtonpost.com]
By Maria Sacchetti, The Washington Post, July 9, 2021 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will no longer detain most pregnant, nursing and postpartum women for deportation, reversing a Trump-era rule that permitted officials to jail thousands of immigrants in those circumstances, according to a new policy released Friday. ICE’s new policy is even more expansive than it was during the Obama era, when President Biden was vice president. The Obama administration generally exempted pregnant...
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What Paternity Leave Does for a Father’s Brain (nytimes.com)
By Darby Saxbe and Sofia Cardenas, The New York Times, November 8, 2021 After President Biden left paid family leave out of his Build Back Better Act last month, a familiar marshaling of forces took place. Women’s groups and female leaders protested. Senator Patty Murray of Washington said Democrats should not “tell all the women in this country that they can’t have paid leave.” Democratic leaders, well aware that women are the base of the party, have restored four weeks of family leave, at...
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The first ‘Momnibus’ bill was signed into law. Other strides for Black maternal health could follow. [thelily.com]
By Anne Branigin, Photo: Teresa Crawford/AP;iStock;Washington Post illustration, The Lily, December 6, 2021 The day she introduced the “Momnibus” in March 2020, Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) warned of a public health crisis that would not abate unless lawmakers took action: Black birthing parents were dying at unacceptable rates, she said. “While maternal mortality rates continue to drop around the world, they are rising in the U.S., leaving behind devastated families and children who will...
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Homicide is a leading cause of death in pregnant people, a new study finds. Black women are at greatest risk. [thelily.com]
By Cecilia Nowell, Illustration: iStock/Washington Post Illustration, The Lily, December 6, 2021 At the Safe Sisters Circle, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., founder and executive director Alana C. Brown said she has worked with “countless” survivors of intimate partner violence who were abused while pregnant. While providing legal services to survivors in the city’s predominantly Black Ward 7 and 8, Brown said she’s witnessed that sometimes the abuse isn’t only physical; she’s seen...
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Experts’ tips for how Black women can advocate for their own health [thelily.com]
By Terri Huggins, Illustration: iStock/Washington Post Illustration, The Lily, January 4, 2022 When it comes to taking care of their health, Black women in the United States have a lot working against them, according to research. They are three times as likely to die of a pregnancy-related cause as White women. They have the highest rate of obesity in comparison to other groups, and they experience higher rates of discrimination, which is a stressor related to poor physical and mental health...
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How to Help Survivors of Extreme Climate Events (psychologytoday.com)
By Elaine Miller-Karas MSW, LCSW Building Resiliency to Trauma Psychology Today, September 30, 2022 Mental health can suffer after extreme climate events. KEY POINTS Mental health conditions exacerbated by natural disasters include post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety. After a disaster, the number of people needing assistance from the mental health systems strains or exceeds community capacity. There are simple strategies helpers can use to help survivors restore...
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How much would the NAS poverty reduction packages reduce referrals to CPS and foster care placements? Would they reduce racial disproportionality in child welfare? (nasonline.org).
Because of a collaboration with Columbia University and UW-Madison, we have answers to these questions. By Peter Peter Pecora, Casey Family Programs, March 17, 2023 - Overview The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recently released a “ roadmap ” to reduce child poverty by as much as half through the implementation of a series of social policy packages. The aim of this study was to simulate the reductions in Child Protective Services (CPS) involvement and foster care placements that are...
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How a Nurse Leader Took on the Social Determinants of Health (rwjf.org)
To read more of Najaf Ahmed's article, please click here. Maria Gomez was 13 years old when she immigrated to the United States with her widowed mother to escape violent political turmoil in Colombia. They landed in Virginia on a snowy day with no boots, no coat, and not speaking a word of English. Together, they faced many challenges while navigating their new life. In spite of them, Maria’s gratitude and drive to give back led her to a nursing career. She ultimately joined a group of...
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SunnysideFlex: A Web-Based Intervention for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder during Pregnancy
The Trauma Informed Health Education and Research (TIHCER) Collaborative presents, SunnysideFlex: A Web-Based Intervention for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder during Pregnancy Presentation: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects 4-8% of women in the general population during pregnancy, but up to 33% of women from disadvantaged or minoritized communities. Unfortunately, PTSD is rarely detected or treated in obstetric settings. Further, there is a massive shortage of providers trained in...
