Healthy Beginnings

Laura Dubester of CET speaks to the crowd and the media at the Healthy Beginnings Press Conference in 2007 on the steps of Pittsfield City Hall.

Welcome to the Healthy Beginnings Perinatal Environmental Health Tool Kit - a set of plain-language handouts, environmental health assessments, and community resources designed to motivate and empower women of reproductive age to make the changes necessary to protect themselves and their children from toxicant exposure. If you are looking for a way to impact not only the health of women and their families, but also the health of your communities, you have come to the right place.

Pregnancy and the arrival of a new child are teachable moments - a time when women and their families are receptive to making changes in their lives in order to ensure the healthy development of their babies. A growing body of scientific research emphasizes the importance of protecting the fetus and young child from toxicant exposure, even at low-doses, because it is a time when a child’s neurological, immunological, reproductive and respiratory systems are especially vulnerable. When women of reproductive age are armed with credible information on ways to reduce or eliminate exposure to toxicants, they play a critical role in safe-guarding themselves and their families from preventable harm. Informed parents also provide the human capital upon which communities ‘make the connection’ between environment and health and enact policy that protects neighborhoods’ natural resources, schools, and workplaces.

Cathy Marchetto speaks during the 2007 Press Conference announcing the Healthy Beginnings Program and the Smoke Free Pledge.

This toolkit shares materials from all facets of a community-based program funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and designed to improve indoor air quality and reduce exposure to second hand smoke. It was first launched in 2004 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts under the collaborative leadership of Center for Ecological Technology (CET), Berkshire Health Systems Operation BetterStart/WIC, and Sprout, a pediatrician-led initiative for children’s environment health.

In our program, environmentally health trained nurses meet one on one with WIC enrolled pregnant and post-partum women to counsel them about ways to reduce exposure to toxicants. Women receive a packet of easy to read handouts on topics covered during the counseling session.

Handouts in English and Spanish

The information contained in the handouts below can help protect mothers and their babies from harmful chemicals and help them make their homes and work places safer.

Even small exposures to toxicants during pregnancy or early infancy can later lead to asthma, birth defects, developmental problems, immune system weaknesses, and even cancer. The good news is that each day offers an opportunity to make healthier decisions. The information contained in these handouts offer easy, affordable steps mothers can take to protect themselves and their babies from harmful chemicals.

Individual handouts are available here, as are the complete packages in both English and Spanish versions.

Educational Handouts - English
These are individual .pdf documents. If you want the whole package in one big pdf, download this.

Educational Handouts - Spanish
These are individual .pdf documents. If you want the whole package in one big pdf, download this.

Helpful Forms and Templates

The Environmental Health Assessment can be used:

As a counseling guide to assess individual women’s environmental health risks and prioritize risk reduction
As a means of communication among health care providers about a woman’s environmental health risks, and to foster point of contact risk reduction messaging
As a benchmark of the environmental health issues a pregnant woman faces in your community

Lorie Harrington talks with a patient about the dangers of second hand smoke.

In our program, nurses specially trained in environmental health issues meet with WIC-enrolled women for about 30 minutes and together, they identify and prioritize individual and family environmental health risks and review ways to reduce or eliminate exposure.

A copy of the environmental risk assessment form is shared with the obstetrician or midwife for review. This gives a woman’s antenatal health care provider the opportunity to reinforce recommended changes.

Additional tools that we found helpful were the Participant Evaluation Form and the Tracking Spreadsheet Template.

The Participant Evaluation Form is a survey given to all women at their 6 week postpartum visit and offers a way for us to assess the program effectiveness.

The Tracking Spreadsheet Template is used to compile the data from the Environmental Health Assessments. This provides a useful snapshot of the environmental health issues young families face in our community, and can help guide community leaders and other stake holders in program decision making. It also helps identify areas in which further education and counseling is needed.

Links

Here are some useful links to other websites:

The Program Overview is Dr. McNally’s presentation to Berkshire Medical Center’s Community Benefits Board. It provides a comprehensive overview of the project and summarizes some of the key aspects of the program, including results of aggregate data gathered from environmental health assessments.

We hope you find these materials useful and encourage you to adapt them to your communities’ environmental health needs.

Many thanks to all who were involved in Healthy Beginnings, even at its earliest stages, for it was the combined inspiration and hard work that made the project possible: Laura Dubester, Cathy Marchetto, Lorie Harrington, Sandy Barzowskas, Amanda Dubroski, Shannon McDonough, Ruth Dinerman, Ruth Blodgett, Ed Perlak, Robert Tocchio, Berkshire OB-GYN, Berkshire VNA, Siobhan McNally.

Tips for Success

Do your research
For your program to be successful, you will need to make sure the environmental health topics your program covers are in sync with the issues your community faces. We urge you to take advantage of the helpful resources and links on this page.

Identify vulnerable groups
Recent immigrants, teens, those living near hazardous waste sites, or falling in low-income or low literacy brackets tend to be the most vulnerable in terms of environmental health exposures. Reach out to them. Adapt educational materials so that they are easy to understand and practical.

Know and use your local community resources
Local organizations may be able to help with lead testing and abatement, fishing advisories, water quality testing, mold remediation, weatherization or hazardous waste collections. Avoid "referral holes". For example, if you urge women to "contact their local health department" for further information on specific environmental health issues, make sure the health department knows and can respond appropriately.

Build support
Identify champions in your community from various sectors of your community - medical, community and environmental organizations and advocacy groups, parent outreach groups, employers, educators. Communicate with them on a regular basis.

Collaboration is key
We attribute much of our success to the fact that we worked side by side with WIC and other well-established, respected programs in the community.

Contact us

We are more than happy to answer any questions you may have about Healthy Beginnings in more depth.

Lorenzo Macaluso at CET
Siobhan McNally MD, MPH of CHP-Neighborhood Health Clinic, Pittsfield, MA 01201
Cathy RN, BSN at Berkshire Health Systems/Operation Better Start