FAMILY PLANNING FOR THOSE WITH COMPLEX CHRONIC CONDITIONS
Mehret Birru Talabi
The United States has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality among comparable countries. This fact is influenced in part by people experiencing pregnancy who also have chronic medical conditions.
Mehret Birru Talabi, assistant professor of medicine in the School of Medicine, is working to ensure health care systems provide better anticipatory care and guidance to help those with rheumatic diseases have the healthiest and safest pregnancies possible.
“The diseases I treat as a rheumatologist are chronic and complex conditions, many of which are independently associated with severe maternal morbidity and mortality,” says Birru Talabi. “Knowing that pregnancy can exacerbate disease conditions, how do we improve the rheumatology clinical environment so that family planning is part of the standard of care?”
“I hope our team’s research leaves a mark on how we approach people who are contemplating different family planning decisions in a way that’s centered on their needs.”
Education, communication and collaboration between patients and providers leads to better outcomes in pregnancy and other facets of sexual and reproductive health. Health care providers cannot assume patients know which medications might detrimentally affect pregnancy or the safety or effectiveness of various contraception methods. To help patients make more informed reproductive decisions, Birru Talabi developed a novel, patient-facing decision aid called MyVoice:Rheum. The decision aid aims to enhance pregnancy decision-making and planning within the rheumatology clinical setting.
But rheumatology is not the only subspecialty that treats conditions that affect pregnancy. Luckily there are many researchers across Pitt that are looking for shared solutions and approaches to make a change.
One way Birru Talabi is promoting collaborative, cross-disciplinary work is through Optimizing Reproductive Health in People with Chronic Disease (ORCHID). Led by Birru Talabi and Traci Kazmerski in the Department of Pediatrics, ORCHID aims to develop innovative health care models to optimize reproductive health care among people with chronic conditions.
“I hope our team’s research leaves a mark on how we approach people who are contemplating different family planning decisions in a way that’s centered on their needs,” says Birru Talabi. “At the end of the day, we want them to have the safest and healthiest outcomes possible, no matter what those goals are.”