University of North Carolina School of Medicine
Presentation Abstract
Unmet Maternal Health Needs: Coordinating Care in the Setting of Maternal Comorbidities
For most pregnancy-capable adults, maternity care is their substantive encounter with the health care system, comprising 12-14 outpatient encounters and at least two days of hospitalization for childbirth. Entry to prenatal care is thus, for most adults, the starting point for a lifelong relationship with health care. To the extent that the care team partners with the birthing person, centering strengths and engaging in shared decisions to mitigate vulnerabilities, pregnancy can set the stage of ongoing collaborative engagement with the health system. A pregnant person’s strengths and vulnerabilities embody experiences across the life course, including the sequelae of structural racism, class oppression, and gender discrimination. Holistic, person-focused care is therefore essential to mitigate past institutional betrayal and build trust. This presentation will explore strategies for assessing strengths and vulnerabilities early in prenatal care, as well as how we might partner with birthing people to chart a course to lifelong health, thereby improving health and wellbeing across generations.
About Dr. Stuebe
Dr. Alison Stuebe completed her obstetrics and gynecology residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She completed fellowship training in maternal-fetal medicine at Brigham and Women’s, and she earned a master’s in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health. She has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles. She is currently a Professor of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and Distinguished Professor of Infant and Young Child Feeding at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. She has been awarded grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Her current research focuses on developing models for holistic and equitable care of families during the 4th trimester.
She is a member of the Steering Committee for MomsRising North Carolina, and she is actively engaged in professional organizations. She is Immediate Past President of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine and a former board member of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine. At the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, she is a member of both the Breastfeeding Expert Work Group and the Maternal Mental Health Expert Work Group, and she chaired the Task Force on Reinventing Postpartum Care.
Dr. Stuebe disclosed the following conflicts of interest: member of steering committee for MomsRising North Carolina; served as Immediate Past President of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine; inventor of the Couplet Care Bassinet™ technology and could receive royalties in the future; Investigator for grants funded by AHRQ (postnatal safety learning lab, systematic reviews of postpartum care, hypertension management), NIH (role of oxytocin in postpartum depression), and PCORI (setting the agenda for infant feeding research, comparative effectiveness trial of perinatal depression treatment).