CHICAGO — The University of Illinois Chicago and Illinois Department of Public Health have received a $9.5 million grant to help improve maternal outcomes in the state.
Around 73 women die each year within one year of pregnancy and black women are six times more likely to die of a pregnancy-related condition in the state of Illinois.
Arden Handler, Professor and Interim Division Director for the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health, said the grant will help with a system of statewide efforts.
“The project has many innovative components to really work with hospitals on their response to hemorrhaging and hypertension,” Handler said. “To work with them on something that came out of the state legislature last spring related to birth equity initiative, training and implicate bias so that providers, when women say they are in pain they really respond to them.”
Handler said home visits are also a popular form of health care in Illinois.
“But, often home visitors are trained to mostly focus on the infant and we want to provide home visitors with more tools and more skills and more knowledge about women’s health,” Handler said.
The funding will also help create a new type of facility that will be a two-generation postpartum clinic and research and training center at UIC.
“The idea is that moms and babies would be treated together and taken care of together for two years postpartum,” Handler said.
The clinic will provide comprehensive care including psychiatric support and behavioral pediatrics.
“We really are trying to make it as comprehensive as possible, and really meet women where they are at, and hear their voices, and make sure we are meeting their needs,” Handler said.
Community health workers will be trained and can call when an appointment has been missed or attend a home visit. They will also be trained in lactation support, according to Handler.
Late 2020 is the expected time for the implementation of the two-generation clinic.
