Overview
The Post Birth Save Your Life program helps nurses and clinicians implement these life-saving education techniques at their facilities. The program consists of an online education course with CEU offering for the nurses, an implementation toolkit, the Post-Birth Warning Signs Magnet and magnet templates, and Save Your Life handouts developed by the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN). Nursing Grand Rounds were held in 11 of 21 delivering hospitals with a webinar presented by Melanie Riley, RN, MSN and Shauna Lively, RN, EdD, LCCE.
Our Approach
We believe evidence-based initiatives are the key to improving maternal and infant health outcomes.
Explore our collaborative projects:
Safe Sleep
The goal of Say YES To Safe Sleep For Babies is to make infants as safe as possible in their sleeping environment and prevent sleep-related injuries and deaths of babies under the age of one. Annual training for hospitals and home visitors if offered in conjunction with Team for West Virginia Children Our Babies: Safe & Sound.
For more information contact Mary Beth Stewart at mbstewart@wvperinatal.org or visit: teamwv.org/our-babies-safe-sound.
Infant Mortality
High infant mortality is a complex problem in West Virginia that the WV Perinatal Partnership is working to solve. WVPP programs that seek to decrease some of the causes of infant mortality include:
- Decreasing substance exposure and neonatal abstinence syndrome.
- Decreasing maternal smoking with Baby and Me Tobacco Free.
- Increasing access to maternal care in rural areas with WV RMOMS.
Infectious Diseases
West Virginia has experienced a rise in Hepatitis C and other sexually transmitted infections in the last several years. The rate of maternal Hepatitis C is 30 per 1000 compared to a national rate of 4 per 1000; congenital syphilis cases reported to West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources increased 650% from 2017 to 2021. The West Virginia Perinatal Partnership is committed to working with the state to develop an effective response to address this problem.
Physician leadership from the Partnership’s Substance Use During Pregnancy Committee recommended that community-based pediatric providers be notified when a baby in their care was born to a woman diagnosed with Hepatitis C through Project WATCH. This policy was adopted and went into effect in 2020. In addition, Partnership staff sit on statewide groups such as the Hepatitis Elimination Technical Advisory Group and the West Virginia Syphilis, Hepatitis, and HIV Infant Mortality and Morbidity Review.
