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January 2017 is National Birth Defects Prevention Month

By SCMA On 17/01/2017  

January 2017 is National Birth Defects Prevention Month, and the SCMA® wants you to know that there are a lot of materials and resources to assist medical assistants and other healthcare professionals interested in promoting birth defects prevention among their patients.

Every 4 ½ minutes, a baby is born with a major birth defect in the United States. They are a leading cause of death among U.S. infants, accounting for about 20% of mortality in the first year of life.

In addition, babies born with birth defects have a greater chance of illness and long-term disability than babies without birth defects. The observance of National Birth Defects Prevention Month is an opportune time to focus on raising awareness about the frequency with which birth defects occur in the United States and of the steps that can be taken to prevent them. While not all birth defects can be prevented, there is a wealth of information medical assistants may share with their patients to help them get ready for a healthy pregnancy.

Why do YOU need to get involved?

March of Dimes presents us with some interesting statistics:
• 15M babies are born prematurely each year around the world. 1M will die.
• Average medical cost for a healthy baby: $4,389 for a premature baby: $54,194

Their 2016 Premature Birth Report Cards is a call to how the health of babies in the United States has taken a step backward as the nation's preterm birth rate worsened for the first time in eight years. The report further states that the U.S. earned a "C" grade amidst widening differences in prematurity rates across different races and ethnicities.

Partnership with Patients

We know that certain medications can cause serious birth defects if they are taken during pregnancy. For many medications taken by pregnant women, the safety has been difficult to determine.

In November 2016, the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD) presented some key findings on antibiotic use among women with urinary tract infections in the first trimester of pregnancy. The article zeroes in on its correlation with birth defects, specifically citing that women who used the antibiotics trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, nitrofurantoin, or cephalosporins were at higher risk for one or more major birth defects, as compared to women who only took penicillin.

On the same month, in a study published in the journal Birth Defects Research (Part A), CDC researchers developed a method to identify pregnant women in health insurance databases and find important information about their pregnancies and their use of antidepressants during pregnancy.

It may surprise many to learn that about 50 percent of all pregnancies in the United States are not planned. With many birth defects and other newborn health problems occurring in the first few weeks after conception—when women may not even know they're pregnant, it only underscores the role healthcare workers may play in preparing women for what lies ahead.

Information Empowers

Medical assistants may help with by leading women to healthy choices to help prevent birth defects.

Besides taking a daily multivitamin containing folic acid to prevent serious birth defects of the brain and spine, women can take other steps to avoid infections that can hurt them and their babies during pregnancy. Foodborne illnesses, viruses, and parasites can cause birth defects and lifelong disabilities, such as hearing loss or learning problems. Other resolutions from the March of Dimes for moms-to-be:

  • Be up-to-date with your vaccinations (shots). Talk to your healthcare provider about vaccinations you should receive before or during pregnancy, including your flu shot and Tdap booster.
  • Don't eat raw or undercooked meat, raw or runny eggs, unpasteurized (raw) juice or dairy products, raw sprouts -- or products made with them.
  • Handle foods safely. Be sure to wash all knives, utensils, cutting boards, and dishes used to prepare raw meat, fish or poultry before they come into contact with other foods.
  • Maintain good hygiene. Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially before preparing or eating foods; after being around or touching pets and other animals; and after changing diapers or wiping runny noses.
  • Do not put a young child's food, utensils, drinking cups, or pacifiers in your mouth.
  • Protect yourself from animals and insects known to carry diseases such as Zika virus, including mosquitos. This includes avoiding travel to areas where the virus is circulating. Find out more at ZAPzika.org.
  • Stay away from wild or pet rodents, live poultry, lizards and turtles during pregnancy.
  • Let someone else clean the cat litter boxes!

To stay informed, medical assistants may read up on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) guidelines for the vaccines needed before, during, and after pregnancy. Vaccines help protect mother and baby against serious diseases. Be ready to remind your patients that when they are pregnant, they share everything with their baby.

Promoting a Healthy Lifestyle:

The golden rule of good health can be summed up like this: Be good to your body so it will be good to you. That means eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly. Health problems are linked to weighing too much or too little before and during pregnancy. Your health is affected by what you eat and by your physical activity.

From fact sheets of Healthy Lifestyle Choices, to Helpful fact sheets on diabetes, smoking, and domestic violence, these downloadable forms are available both in in English and Spanish for medical assistants to help disseminate:

• Fact Sheet-Healthy Lifestyle Choices (English, Spanish)
• Fact Sheet-Diabetes (English, Spanish)
• Fact Sheet-Smoking (English, Spanish)
• Fact Sheet-Domestic Violence (English, Spanish)

More importantly, support in the nationwide effort to raise awareness of birth defects, their causes, and their impact!

Thunderclap

Join the #Prevent2Protect Thunderclap to raise awareness of National Birth Defects Prevention Month. Thunderclap is a social media tool that allows supporters to sign up in advance to share a unified message at a specific time through their individual Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr account. The collective action creates a wave of support – or "thunderclap" – across social media. CDC's Thunderclap will go live on January 18, 2017 at Noon ET.

SIGN UP to support CDC National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities in sharing this message:

"January is Birth Defects Prevention Month. Let's prevent infections and protect babies & families! #Prevent2Protect

References & More Information

An international group of individuals dedicated to birth defects surveillance, research, and prevention
National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD)

The March of Dimes is committed to discovering the genetic causes of birth defects, to promoting newborn screening, and to educating medical professionals and the public about best practices for healthy pregnancy.

CDC helps to support birth defects tracking systems in 14 states and territories in the United States. The tracking systems look for all babies with birth defects who live in their study area, which is important to understand the impact of birth defects in their population.

Detailed national, state and local perinatal statistics. PeriStats is developed by the March of Dimes Perinatal Data Center and provides access to maternal and infant health data for the United States and by state or region, including more than 60,000 graphs, maps, and tables.

A factsheet you may view, download, and print. A one-page overview of CDC's birth defects activities.

A factsheet you may view, download, and print.  

A discussion guide on each vaccine before getting vaccinated.

A National Birth Defects Prevention Study that examined associations between antibiotic use and birth defects, among women reporting urinary tract infections (UTIs).

This study will help future efforts to estimate the use of other medications before and during pregnancy using health insurance claims data.

The ICBDSR brings together birth defects programs from around the world with the aim of conducting worldwide tracking and research to prevent birth defects and to improve the lives of people born with these conditions.