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)
