Thursday, January 10, 2013

Recommendation to Adopt "Perinatal"


Hi Friends,

I have come to believe "mother to child" is stigmatizing and that it has just become standard without anyone thinking about its effect.  It is easily substituted by the word “perinatal". We have been using this a long time, but a couple of year ago, I heard another mother say something that has finally broken through to my consciousness.  It is time for the everyone to re-think this.  Community can make that happen!

I serve on the Pediatric Guidelines Panel for the DHHS and we have initiated the change there. I was surprised when I made the suggestion to the Guidelines panel in the context of stigmatizing the mother, it was accepted without hesitation. Now, as we revise those treatment guidelines, we will be removing the term “…MTC” everywhere it occurs in the guidelines.  I am asking the community at IMPAACT and the Community Partners at all networks to consider expanding the effort.  As new protocols are written, we can ask that “perinatal” be used in the title and throughout the document instead of “mother to child”. The Perinatal Guideline panel can change their language, too. It is a huge task since use of MTC is so pervasive, but one step at a time, I’m certain we can do this! 

Dorothy S - Former Community Partners Co-chair
 

Contact: Russell Campbell (rcampbel@fhcrc.org)