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By helping families understand birth spacing guidelines and effective contraception options, we can help reduce the number of preterm births in Cuyahoga County.
Birth spacing is the time from one baby’s birth until the next pregnancy.
Unfortunately, pregnancies that are spaced less than 18 months after a live birth can lead to adverse birth results, including preterm births and infant death.
For this reason, FYC Action Team 6 is charged with educating parents and families on birth spacing guidelines.
One form of contraception that can help families space their pregnancies is a long-acting reversible contraceptive (LARC). LARC methods, which include intrauterine devices (IUDs) and implants are 20 times more effective than other forms of birth control (including birth control pills) and do not require daily doses, allowing parents to worry less about getting pregnant.
FYC Action Team 6, led by Melissa Federman of the Center for Community Solutions and the March of Dimes, works with health care providers to increase public awareness of birth spacing guidelines and LARC. This allows parents and families to feel comfortable asking questions and learning more about birth spacing guidelines and contraception options.
Overall, spacing births can decrease extreme prematurity in families and our community — and it can also lead to healthier parents and babies.
Spacing births more than 18 months apart reduces adverse birth outcomes. Some other birth spacing best practices, provided by the March of Dimes, that you can follow to impact the health of you and your baby include:
Our community also needs to ensure that One Key Question, a pregnancy intention screening program, is widely practiced in clinical and community settings and that it is implemented in the most effective method.
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