WEBINAR: Climate Crisis Threats to Pregnancy and Newborn Health

Overview

Environmental crises have a significant impact on reproductive and maternal health. Scientific research and the experiences of pregnant people, families and the health workers that serve them provide increasing evidence of the effects of wildfires, extreme heat, and other climate impacts, on pregnancy health. Epidemiologic studies link exposure to both extreme heat and wildfire smoke to increased risk of poor maternal health and adverse birth outcomes including preterm birth, low birth weight and stillbirth. Little is in place to try and manage these emerging threats.

Interventions are needed to prevent the climate crisis from deepening the unjust racial and other inequities that center the US’ maternal health crisis. Maternal and infant outcomes are worse in the United States than in other industrialized nations, with black and brown people being disproportionately affected. Including climate change in how we understand maternal and newborn health unearths multiple intersecting vulnerabilities driven by systemic racism and other marginalization. Attention to climate change and the effects of environmental crises on maternal and newborn health is essential to standing up equitable and just sexual and reproductive health policies and programs.

This webinar is designed to provide expert insights into how extreme heat and wildfire exposure affect maternal health and pregnancy outcomes. Presentations will provide key insights into the latest research on these emerging reproductive justice problems.

Nursing CE and CME credits will be available for this webinar.

Objectives: 

1. Apply a reproductive justice framework to climate change
2. Review selected studies that increase our knowledge related to the impact of climate change on maternal-child health
3. Identify specific actions that can be implemented in practice to assess risk related to climate change.
4. Discuss policy strategies that can be used to mitigate the effect of climate change on maternal-child health.

REGISTER HERE:  https://marchofdimes.org/EnvironmentalHealth

LaTricea Adams is the founder CEO and president of Black Millennials for Flint a national grassroots, environmental justice and civil rights organization with the purpose of bringing like-minded organizations together to collectively take action and advocate against the crisis of lead exposure specifically in African American & Latinx communities throughout the nation..

Tara Marko is a PhD candidate at Washington State University (WSU) College of Nursing and has been awarded an NIH F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award for her current dissertation research titled: Effects to Neonatal Outcomes After In Utero Wildfire Smoke Exposure.

Nate DeNicola is a board-certified Ob/Gyn at Johns Hopkins Health System in Washington, DC and Chair of Telehealth for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and leads their current work on innovation.