January 20, 2021

The Doctor Moms Visit Most? Pediatricians Help Improve Her Health to Keep Babies and Families Healthy Too

Did you know…?

  • Women often stop their medical care for first 18-24 months after child is born
  • Moms may minimize their own health concerns, not realizing they affect newborn health outcomes
  • Pediatricians are viewed by families as the trusted advocate for their child’s health
  • Maternal depression is worse during a pandemic and disproportionately exaggerated in disadvantaged populations
  • Providing multivitamins with folic acid to women of childbearing age increases consumption of daily multivitamins from 25 to 70 percent
  • About 75% of women who stop smoking in pregnancy resume within 1 year after delivery
  • The most crucial period for modifying birth outcomes is before a woman becomes pregnant

The Ohio AAP will launch the Healthy Mom, Healthy Family Quality Improvement Learning Collaborative program in early 2021, a new approach to improving family health and preventing infant mortality coming. Based on the lessons of the Implicit Program, an initiative piloted by the Family Medicine Education Consortium and supported by the March of Dimes, the new Healthy Mom, Healthy Family program will help providers improve health of the entire family by addressing maternal health in pediatric well-child visits. This project will empower pediatricians and healthcare providers to discuss 4 behavioral risks affecting future outcomes: family planning/birth spacing; smoking cessation; multivitamin use; and maternal mental health.

The Healthy Mom, Healthy Family project will provide practices with tools and training to more fully screen mothers for health risks at infant well-child visits, such as maternal depression and smoking cessation. The Ohio AAP will provide practices with resources for those with identified needs, such as multivitamins. Practices can sign up now, and will begin the quality improvement (QI) project activities in January 2021 for a full kick off in February 2021.

  • Benefits for to participating project practices include:
    • Easy screening tool and no chart review data collection
    • Up to $1,000 in resources for your patients – like multivitamins, board books, technology assistance, and printed materials
    • Learn to implement the 5As to promote behavior change for lifelong health – Ask, Assess, Advise, Assist, Arrange
    • Networking opportunities with providers interested in infant mortality or interconception care
    • Personalized quality improvement coaching and Ohio AAP resources
    • Participants in the 12 month collaborative earn up to 50 points of MOC Part IV credit in 2021

Registration is now open for practices to engage in the Healthy Mom, Healthy Family program. Contact Hayley Southworth with questions at hsouthworth@ohioaap.org or visit: http://oldsite.ohioaap.org/implicit-toolkit/


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This page is for practice managers and office employees to discuss issues they’re experiencing in their practices. Many problems that we hear about can help other practices, so we invite you to share best practices by posting issues and by responding to issues other practices are experiencing. This page is monitored by the Ohio AAP. Advice and opinions expressed on these discussion boards are the views of the poster and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ohio AAP. If you have any issues, questions, or feedback, please contact Melanie Farkas.