Tarrant County’s seven hospitals are the first in Texas to implement a program designed to enhance the health of expectant mothers and their infants.
It is a part of an effort to reverse a concerning statistic: state data shows that moms in Tarrant County are dying at a rate that is much higher than the national average.
The first hospital in Texas to implement TeamBirth, a strategy intended to enhance communication throughout labor, delivery, and the postpartum period, was John Peter Smith Hospital at the end of January.
According to Pam Gessling, executive director for Nursing and Woman & Infant Services at JPS Hospital, “a lot of things are going on in labor.” “There’s a lot of things that are emergent that we just tell patients, ‘We’re going to do this, this, then this,’ and they don’t really understand why things happened.”
A “huddle,” which involves the patient and their loved ones meeting with doctors and nurses to discuss the birthing plan, is the cornerstone of this new initiative.
“We will hear things like, ‘I didn’t understand what happened to me,’ ‘I didn’t feel like I was heard,’ ‘I feel like my questions were not answered,'” Dr. Stephanie Carson-Henderson, chair of Women & Infants at John Peter Smith Hospital and JPS Health Network stated. “And so, we know that in having these huddles and having patients participate in their care, we’re really hoping to change that patient experience.”
It may not seem like a life-altering bedside discussion, but it might make deliveries safer for both mothers and infants.
For persons of color, the hazards are significantly greater. Tarrant County has the second-highest maternal death rate among Black women in the state, according to state data.
90% of pregnancy-related deaths have some possibility of being preventable, and 12% of pregnancy-related deaths are linked to prejudice, according to United Way of Tarrant County.
“It’s a scary time for women, and they feel very vulnerable,” Gessling stated. “And this is a time where we need to empower them and help them realize that they have a choice and they have a voice.”
They think involving the patient in the process will benefit both the mother’s and the baby’s long-term health results as well as the delivering experience.
The medical staff also benefits from the huddle. According to TeamBirth researchers, 80–90% of patient harm occurrences are caused by healthcare teams’ inability to communicate and operate together.
at the US, TeamBirth has already been implemented at over 100 institutions.
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Baylor Scott & White and Texas Health also started implementing TeamBirth at some of their Tarrant County hospitals after JPS Hospital started the program.
“Healthy moms will create healthy families and that will lead to healthy communities,” stated Carson-Henderson.
The United Way of Tarrant County has trained 120 community doulas, who provide free pregnancy and delivery support and advocacy to women as part of the county’s effort to enhance mother and newborn health.
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Research indicates that having a doula present lowers the risk of low birth weights, c-sections, and early deliveries.
“It was intended to address the outcomes that we were having in Tarrant County with, higher than average maternal morbidity, mortality, as well as infant mortality as well,” Carson-Henderson stated.
