Maternl© addresses your pregnancy health, experiences and outcomes
within a milieu of empathy compassion, advocacy and trust
How ?
A personal pregnancy health record (PPHR)
The Maternl© Personal Prenatal Health record (PPHR) is a portable, secure and interactive electronic personal health
record, to be used by any pregnant woman but designed specifically for pregnant women in underserved, urban and rural communities, nationally and internationally.
This program provides a place to document, store and retrieve:
A space for comfort, empathy, support and hope if you should experience a miscarriage, stillbirth or newborn death
Original writings, poems, sharing and bereavement resources
"Though strangers we may be, we are all connectied by the loss of a child, and that makes us all soulmates..."
Maternl© strives to improve the awareness of the impact of perinatal, neonatal and infant loss on families, community and society and supports the premise that perinatal and infant morbidity and mortality can be affected by providing all women and their families who have experienced perinatal losses the availability of perinatal bereavement counseling, pre- and inter-conception counseling( including an evaluation and understanding of their losses) and access to comprehensive women's healthcare services.
Here you will:
A program to rededicate an original, personalized poem to a loved one or friend or keep for yourself as a remembrance or celebration and ability to select a poem to download and print which is personalized and rededicated for you to have and share.
Poetry enables me to ask why even when we already understand how. It permits me as a Doctor of Medicine,
witness to the frailties of our humanity, to abet healing through the very core of what makes us human,
our language and our personal emotions. It is my platform to tell my 'stories', to honor my patients,
my friends, my family and indeed, the essence of humanity, the "family of man". It is my hope that offering
these very personal poems to the users of Maternl© for their own or to
be shared with friends and family will bring solace, comfort and hope at most difficult of times and celebrate and
honor those of friends, family and colleagues who are in deed praise-worthy of such.
As an Obstetrician, my professional mission has involved a striving to bring comfort and healing to children, born and yet to born, and to mothers through their years of childbearing and beyond. I have been uplifted by the triumphs of birth and healing and depressed by the failures. Yet I have always tried to look beyond the failures in search of the triumphs. I have counseled patients at the darkest times of their lives, when their children have died, and I have turned to the comfort of personal reflection, poetry and self-expression to better help me help my patients.
Maternl©, along with the companion book, Parenthood Lost, I am sharing these personal poems, essays and thoughts; my personal approach to my patients that I can now extend to many others to help comfort those who have endured the tragedy of a Pregnancy Loss and / or Neonatal Death. Unique to Maternl© website is this opportunity to re-dedicate an original poem to honor their child (or for someone else's child ) and
download this personalized, signed poem.
For those who would like to contribute to and help sustain the mission of Maternl©, you may select a poem written and rededicated for the loss of a pregnancy or newborn or a poem for other occasions to honor, eulogize or celebrate;
occassions that might be appropriate for you or for your friends, family or colleagues.
Here you may:
A private and personal -or if your choose public- space to reflect and share
Sharing personal and professional reflections, ideas and thoughts
This program offers a private space for only the registered user to access to memorialize thoughts and reflections and a public space, moderated by the Maternl© team. Here, you - including but not limited to healthcare professionals, students and patients - will find a place to document and share personal reflections, essays, stories and commentaries that reflect perspectives on maternal and child healthcare, including humanism, disparities in access and care, ethics and the importance of trust: the hallmark of the doctor-patient relationship as well as thoughts and teachings about our patients when they die or are incurable: the ultimate challenge to the bond of patient with doctor. Each entry is also emailed to the registered user.
A personalized letter of introduction to a center for pre-natal care and women's health
"Get The Healthcare You Deserve"
The Maternl© organization believes that all families must be able to enter and be embraced by a healthcare system. Through its 'GetCare' program, Maternl© can provide not only help with finding and access to pre-natal care centers and resources, but Maternl© fosters advocacy and personalized direction to these center by providing a letter of introduction to the center so dignity and respect can be realized and essential pre-natal care services be obtained.
About GetCare©
The intent and purpose of this program is specifically to improve the maternal and child health of the population it serves by reducing what are major disparities in health, particularly antenatal health care in an effort to reduce disparate rates of premature births, perinatal losses and infant deaths. Among these disparities is a lack of awareness of local healthcare facilities offering maternal and child health care services including prenatal care, a lack of understanding of the need for pre-natal care, albeit early care, the late diagnosis, recognition and acceptance of one’s pregnancy embarrassment and denial, and perhaps, we hypothesize, shame, diminished self worth and dignity and a feeling of isolation without a place or professional to turn to for immediate care, counseling and advocacy. Families without access to healthcare feel vulnerable and disenfranchised. These families must enter and be embraced by a healthcare system. By providing not only a significant awareness to the need for inter-conception and pre-natal care, but advocacy and personalized direction for this population at risk, such dignity and self worth can be realized, privacy and confidentiality assured, and through the Get The Heath Care You Deserve© program of Maternl©, personalized referrals can be given to women to present at a healthcare facility so they will know there is an organization advocating for their health. This organization, Maternl, a program of Hygeia Health Systems, LLC, was established in 1995 as the Hygeia Foundation, Inc., a trusted non-profit organization with a membership of more than 30,000 families, world-wide, which provided local and online bereavement support, information and advocacy for families who have incurred the devastation of perinatal loss and infant death. The Hygeia Foundation, Inc. was dissolved in 2102 and Hygeia Health Systems, LLC is now reintroducing several programs to improve a mother’s health and reduce perinatal and maternal morbidity and mortality.
Through this portal, Get The Heath Care You Deserve© provides the user with easy access to a database of geographic-specific Federally Funded Clinics where Maternal and Child Health Services linked throough HHS.gov, and Global Centers of Excellence where prenatal and delivery care can be given. The user obtains a personalized letter of referral from the Maternl an d Hygeia Health Ststems, LLC which introduces them to their health care facility as one who needs help, much like a private patient would have a letter of referral to a doctor from another doctor. The service is free of charge to those who wish to use it and can be easily linked to local and regional social services so the families can have their support as well. The primary entry point into the system is through the Internet portal http://maternl.org / http://maternl.com or by a soon to be introduced “Maternl Passbook.” This will be distributed at markets, fast food chains, pharmacies, laundromats, and other retail venues. The user can go to a public library, school, church, community center etc. (if no internet access is available at home) and be assisted in accessing the Get The Heath Care You Deserve program. The program serves a parallel purpose in narrowing the disparities of the “digital divide” and the disparities in access to healthcare.
Educational Objective:
Fetal and infant mortality rates have decreased dramatically over the last century with improvements in sanitation, nutrition, infant feeding, and maternal and child health care, although the decline has been slower in recent years. However, disparities in the risk of infant death remain. Black and Hispanic teens are more than twice as likely as white teens to mother a child before the age of 20. The infant mortality rate for children born to teen mothers is about 50 percent higher than that for those born to women older than 20. One third of pregnant teens receive inadequate prenatal care; babies born to young mothers are more likely to be low-birthweight, to have childhood health problems and to be hospitalized than are those born to older mothers. It is the educational objective of the Get The Heath Care You Deserve© program to emphasize the need and necessity for health promotion, health prevention, inter-conception care, pre-conception care and early pre-natal care to bring underserved and vulnerable families into the healthcare system, inspiring respect, self-esteem, self-worth and dignity.Problem
Summary
Get The Heath Care You Deserve©
Contact
Michael R. Beman, MD, MBI, FACOG
Founder, President and CEO
Maternl©
Hygeia Health Systems, LLC
P.O Box 3674
Woodbridge, Connecticut 06525
http://hygeia.org http://maternl.org
info@hygeia.org