Reducing the level of premature birth rates by 36 percent, CenteringPregnancy, the new trend in prenatal care, is becoming ever important for expectant mothers. Naval Hospital Camp Lejeune’s efforts in the realm of excellent prenatal care were validated Wednesday with the receipt of site approval for its CenteringPregnancy Program. This certification is the first for naval medical treatment facilities on the East Coast and third Navy wide – joining Medical Center, San Diego and Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton, Calif.
“This certification affirms what we have been working so hard to accomplish over the last three years,” said Heidi Walker, NHCL CenteringPregnancy coordinator. “Ensuring top notch care is what we strive to do through our groups, because prenatal care is the first line of defense in preventing poor birth outcomes. This is especially important considering the number of births here.”
The hospital has an average of five births a day or 167 a month and 2013 births over the past year, according to Scott Staup, the Labor and Delivery nurse manager.
What is CenteringPregnancy? How is it different from other prenatal care?
When a woman finds out she is pregnant, she is going to be seen for a myriad of appointments - the first being with a nurse who will create their chart and order their lab work.
“She would then have to schedule her own appointments via the appointment line every 4-6 weeks,” said Walker. “The appointment time is booked for 20 minutes, but wait times could be longer. The patient meets an average of nine times with a health care provider during the course of the pregnancy. She may or may not see the same provider each time. While the health care provider wants to see their patients all the time, sometimes it happens.”
In her J Midwifery Women’s Health article Gina Novick explains what women want.
“Women's preferences included reasonable waits, unhurried visits, continuity, flexibility, comprehensive care, meeting with other pregnant women in groups, developing meaningful relationships with professionals, and becoming more active participants in care,” said Novick.
The three major themes from her study in regards to the components of care were continuity, comprehensiveness and control.
CenteringPregnancy, an optional program, differs greatly from regular care and strives to provide those core elements. Based on the evidence-based, patient-centered model created by Sharon Schindler-Rising, women with similar due dates come together in a group setting to interact with their healthcare provider during 10, two-hour sessions - every 4 weeks until the 28th week of pregnancy; then it is every other week.
“With Centering, the appointment is two hours in length and the appointment starts on time and ends on time and there is no waiting. Once the patient steps foot into the Centering room the appointment begins,” said Walker.
In this small group setting, eight to 12 women receive prenatal care, health assessments, interactive learning and community building, which has proven to be important, especially for military women, who are often far removed from their extended networks.
Additionally this type of health care setting allows the mother to be more invested in their healthcare and more likely to make healthier choices and lifestyle changes.
“They are not only learning from their provider, they are learning from the collective knowledge of the group,” said Walker. “They are gleaning information from many resources as well as life experiences.”
Why is it important?
“Family readiness equates to deployment readiness,” explained Walker.
This same concept was iterated in a 2012 Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing article on the Tri-Service Perspective on Implementation of a Centering Pregnancy Model in the Military.
“… if service members are distracted about their families’ quality of life, their efficiency, productivity and even safety may be compromised,” according to the article.
“Deployed spouses and family members, who live states away, can leave women feeling alone. The CenteringPregnancy groups help to provide a network of women who are going through the same things,” said Walker. “This network can become extremely important for each woman. It can encourage less depression and better eating habits which in turn promotes healthier pregnancy. It also lowers their emergency triage rates.”
Additionally the group bonding doesn’t end after the baby is born.
“The groups are even getting together after the baby is born. In fact, nurses have reported that new mothers are visiting each other after their births.”
Why is the site approval important?
The hospital’s program underwent scrutiny from the Centering Healthcare Institute which regulates model fidelity and ensures quality practices.
“We are looking at every area for the site approval – sustainability, outcomes,” said Margie Rickell, the site evaluator. “We want to ensure that it’s not some hokey look-a-like model.”
The certification process looks at three main areas – model fidelity and sustainability, practice scales and better health scores.
“It is one thing to get a CenteringPregnancy program up and running, it something else to be able to keep it running,” said Rickell, who commented on the facility size and warmth. Practice scales deal with group size, number of providers and number of eligible women participating in Centering. NHCL’s numbers are on the rise, according
to the Centering Site Approval Report.
“I attribute your success to the supportive leadership. They really do support what you are doing here,” said Rickell.
One area of measurable success was the hospital’s health scores.
“We are very excited at where we are within our health scores,” explained Walker. “We have less than seven percent of our babies born prematurely. Less than 6 percent have low birth weight and 88 percent of mothers have opted to breastfeed their babies.”
Each of these scores surpasses the expectations of the approval requirements – less than 9.6 percent premature rate, less than 7.8 percent low birth rate and more than 81.9 percent of mother’s breastfeeding at the time of discharge.
What is next?
Walker explains that the goal is to continue to grow the program.
“We currently have four to five new groups starting every month – which is about 33 percent of the (Obstetrics) clinic patient population. Our goal is to double,” said Walker who is also an in-house facilitator trainer. “We would really like to be able to get more people trained throughout the hospital to include, family medicine, the residency program, and Labor and Delivery.”
Centering is beneficial all the way around. Not only does it reduce the odds of preterm birth between 33 to 48 percent across studies, it also
saves money.
“Centering saves on average more than $2,000 per pregnant woman based on improvements in preterm birth and breastfeeding rates for women in Centering groups,” according to the Centering Health Care Website.
“We are very proud of our program and the benefits to the families,” said Capt. Amy Branstetter, NHCL executive officer. “We would not be successful without the people involved. They are very much needed and appreciated.”
To learn more about Centering visit the Centering Healthcare Institute Website at www.centeringhealthcare.org.
| Date Taken: | 04.22.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 04.22.2016 14:49 |
| Story ID: | 196268 |
| Location: | CAMP LEJEUNE, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 162 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, NHCL earned Centering Pregnancy Site Certification, by SSgt Danielle Bolton, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
