Fund aims to protect pregnancies

Thursday, July 12, 2007
By Jack Dew, the Berkshire Eagle

Laura Dubester, director of the Center for Ecological Technology, said a program called Healthy Beginnings will try to educate pregnant women about health risks. (Photo by Ali McKee / Berkshire Eagle Staff)

PITTSFIELD - Trying to combat Berkshire County's high rates of women who smoke during pregnancy, a consortium of environmental and health care agencies are using a federal grant to provide counseling to expecting mothers.

The $125,000 grant will fund a three-year program called "Healthy Beginnings." The money, awarded to the Pittsfield-based Center for Ecological Technology by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will be used to help health-care providers educate pregnant women throughout the Berkshires on a range of environment toxins - from cigarette smoke to lead to PCBs — and their harmful effect on children.

"The goal is to reach women right at the beginning, when they are pregnant, when these toxins can actually effect the unborn child," said Laura Dubester, director of the Center for Ecological Technology. "Because we all know that healthier babies mean healthier children mean healthier adults."

To deliver the message, CET is working with Berkshire Health Systems, Berkshire OB/GYN, Operation Better Start and Sprout, a nonprofit that educates families about environmental health.

All mothers referred to Healthy Beginnings will be given advice about avoiding environmental toxins and, if they smoke, will be offered cessation counseling. The program asks every participant to sign a pledge not to allow smoking in their home or car.

Dubester said about 180 women so far have pledged to keep their homes smoke free. While many weren't smokers to begin with, that pledge can help create a new normal in which smoking indoors is no longer acceptable. To show solidarity, Mayor James M. Ruberto signed a pledge during a morning press conference yesterday.

Berkshire County has some of the highest smoking rates among pregnant mothers in Massachusetts. According to Department of Public Health data, 37.7 percent of pregnant women in North Adams reported smoking during their pregnancy. In Pittsfield, the number was 24.5 percent. The statewide average, meanwhile, is just 7.2 percent.

The Berkshires also have the highest rate of adult smokers in the state, with 22.6 percent of adults reporting that they use tobacco, compared to 18.1 percent in Massachusetts.

Combined, these statistics mean children are being exposed to dangerous cigarette smoke both in utero and as infants. That means an increased risk of low birth weight, sudden infant death syndrome, asthma, cancer and certain neurological problems.

"In short, environmental health and maternal and child health are intimately linked with each other," said Dr. Siobhan McNally, a pediatrician and founder of Sprout. "You can't have one without the other."

With such an intense problem, members of the Healthy Beginnings collaborative acknowledge the challenge of convincing mothers to quit smoking and to avoid second-hand smoke.

To reach at-risk women, the grant is providing a nurse to the Women, Infants and Children Program, or WIC, which is often a first stop for low-income pregnant women seeking nutritional advice and health services. The county's obstetricians are also referring patients to Healthy Beginnings.

Nurses will follow the mothers throughout their pregnancy, meeting with them during routine visits to the WIC office or the doctor to discuss their progress and their potential risk factors, said Catherine Marchetto of Berkshire Health Systems' Operation Better Start.

"Hopefully, the earlier we can get information to these pregnant women, the more likely we are to be successful in decreasing some of those risks that are out there," Marchetto said.