Your Healthy Pregnancy
Introduction
'Your Healthy Pregnancy' is a DVD resource with poster that brings together Islamic and medical advice to provide guidance on how to be healthy while you are pregnant and how to give your baby the strongest start in life. We worked closely with health practitioners, local community organizations, pregnant women, mothers and many more to produce this unique resource with the aim of combating perinatal mortality.
The Need
Perinatal describes the period surrounding birth, and traditionally includes the time from fetal viability from about 24 weeks of pregnancy up to either 7 or 28 days of life. Fetal deaths after 24 completed weeks of gestation and death before 7 completed days.
BEN PCT has the second highest perinatal mortality rate in the country. During our initial scoping exercise, we pinpointed some key issues from conversations with doctors, midwives, family support workers, pregnancy outreach workers, and mothers:
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Problems around the degree to which families and patients connect with services - little understanding of the process/timescale, intimidated by hospitals and doctors, lack of awareness of how to expect to be treated
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A failure to engage with services early enough
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Understanding of the importance of a healthy lifestyle before/during pregnancy – food and diet, folic acid, exercise etc
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Existing conditions e.g. diabetes
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Major concerns around breastfeeding and a failure to persevere which has been influenced by misconceptions e.g. that it’s better to change to baby formula because baby will appear bigger/healthier
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Cultural and wider perceptions of pregnancy
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Mental health, including stress and depression
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A lack of awareness of the availability of support and groups
What We Did
In partnership with Birmingham East and North Primary Care Trust and Health Launchpad at the Young Foundation, we produced a series of films specifically aimed at pregnant Muslim women to increase understanding and to direct them towards local available services. The films are available in English, Punjabi and Pashto.
[insert video]
To learn more advice about different stages of pregnancy and about what services and centres are available in Birmingham, download the PDF below.
If you would like a copy of the Your Healthy Pregnancy DVD and poster, which contains the advice and information above, please email: info@maslaha.org.
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