Special Projects

Southwest Virginia Perinatal Council partners with The What to Expect Foundation

Baby Basics is a comprehensive prenatal month by month guide to pregnancy. This comprehensive, low literacy and culturally sensitive book was developed by the publishers of What to Expect When Youre Expecting.

Problem being addressed:

• Infant mortality rate complicated by economic and cultural disparities.
• Limited health literacy prevents many expecting parents from receiving and retaining their providers prenatal health messages.
• No free, complete, low-literacy, culturally sensitive prenatal guide.

In partnership with The What to Expect Foundation and numerous other community partners the Southwest Virginia Perinatal Council began Baby Basics in November of 2005.

Project goals include:

• Improve pregnancy outcomes by encouraging women to get continuous prenatal care.
• Cut down on emergency room visits and phone calls to providers by giving women an educational resource and breadth of information previously unavailable to them.
• Give prenatal healthcare providers and educators a tool to reinforce healthy prenatal habits that does not put a strain on their limited budgets.
• Provide Baby Basics a health literacy tool for expecting mothers that both answers their questions and helps encourage and nurture emerging literacy skills.
• Offer a Spanish version of Baby Basics to the increasing number of Hispanic women in southwest Virginia.
  

Point of Interest:

In Southwest Virginia 23% of those between the ages of 18 to 44 do not have a high school diploma.

For more information, contact Linda Harriger, Special Projects Coordinator at svpc.linda@comcast.net.