'Team Birth' program to improve results for women, infants

Just down the road at Saint Peter's University Hospital, labor and delivery nurses are being primed on a new approach to childbirth centered around shared decision making. It ensures the medical staff and the patient are on the same page throughout the birthing process. A simple concept that's been touted by midwives for decades, shown to improve maternal mortality rates, but only recently put into practice. Senior correspondent Joanna Gaggis has the story. How does the patient feel safe is when everybody in that team, their village is looking out for them. And we're a health care village. Health care leaders gathered at Saint Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick today for the official launch of a birthing program called Team Birth that's meant to improve outcomes for women and infants in New Jersey. Women are saying I wasn't heard or their partner was saying I tried to explain. Nobody listened to me. So with Team Birth, it's a very simple concept, but what it does is it really includes the patient and centers the patient in the conversations and discussions. The program's in its early stages in a few New Jersey hospitals implemented by the New Jersey Healthcare Quality Institute to help improve maternal outcomes, especially for black women in the state. A key part of the approach is including the birthing mom in the plan. We have these pauses. Some people call them huddles, but we call them a pause. So it's a time for the team and that's the care team and that also involves her, her support person, that we all come together and we talk about what the plan of care is. What does that look like when things go wrong, when decisions need to be made quickly? It's even more important when things go wrong and you have to make quick decisions because oftentimes that discussion is being made outside the room with the physician, midwife and the nurse. And often she has no say, right? And she's not given all the details. So now with Team Birth, this is taking place in the room. Team Birth is part of a state maternal health pilot program that's federally funded through the Department of Health and it's a major piece of First Lady Tammy Murphy's Nurture NJ program. We want to make sure that this is the safest place to have your baby and raise your family. And that's what they're doing here. The level of innovation and talking to the mom, talking to the family, bringing everyone together, making sure everyone's voice is heard. That's exactly what we're looking for here at ST peter's. The team birth approach is used both in the standard labor and delivery rooms as well as in the birthing center that's located within the hospital. We're completely separate than our labor and delivery, but yet if you need help, they're here. The Healthcare Quality Institute and Nurture NJ would like to see more hospitals take on this team birth approach and make midwifery a key part of the delivery process like they're doing here at ST peers. I think a lot of times people think a midwife is someone who only had a tense births with people who don't want epidurals and don't want like interventions and everything like that. And we of course support that and we love that experience for people. But we all work as a team. You know, when I need something from one of my OBGYNs, they're there for me. But when they have a patient that's looking for a birthing experience that's similar to what we provide, we're there for them as well. Midwives tend to be trained to have this type of care and it comes more naturally to them anyway. Um, it's effective to have team birth rollout in hospitals with strong nursing leads and a midwifery presence because they can be champions for this. New Jersey Department of Health Nancy Scott over Zato says team birth is creating systemic change in the hospitals adopting it. It really creates that empowerment and that person centered kind of feeling when when the decision making of their care again before and during and after birth is between the patient and the provider. She believes the team birth results will speak for themselves and more hospitals will sign on in New Brunswick. I'm Joanna Gaggis and J. Spotlight News support for the medical report is provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.