Q&A About The New Orange Bracelets that Are Keeping New Moms Safe
Sparkler chatted with Alison Tyliszczak, a consultant for the Connecticut Hospital Association, who leads some of the association’s maternal health efforts, including the Connecticut Perinatal Quality Collaborative, which is behind the new CT Urgent Maternal Warning Signs Bracelet Initiative, which launched in the fall.
Q. How would you describe these bracelets to a new parent?
A. The bracelet is a really simple tool that is meant to be worn after birth, and up to 12 weeks after birth. Oftentimes after birth, there are a lot of complications that can happen that can be unexpected — things like bleeding, fever, and high blood pressure. We really just want to make sure that if any of these things happen, that she can quickly get the care that she needs.
Q. Why is it important for others in the community — librarians, teachers, doctors, etc. — to know about the bracelets?
A. The Bracelet Initiative was really designed to increase community awareness of those preventable postpartum complications, and conditions like hemorrhage, like hypertension — and to ensure that birthing persons are empowered to seek help when they are experiencing symptoms of those complications.
Q. Why are the bracelets orange?
An urgent Maternal Warning Signs Initiative began with The Association of Women’s Health Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN), and orange was kind of their signature color. We wanted to make sure that we were aligning the bracelet Initiative in Connecticut with what AWHONN was doing, and what other states were doing, because other states were also starting to use orange.
Q. The the first seedling of this idea is less than 2 years old! Is it already in all of the hospitals across Connecticut?
A. Yes! We’re the first state to launch a unified statewide strategy, to increase awareness of urgent maternal warning signs. We’re bringing hospitals, EMS, community partners together to, help ensure that those warning signs are recognized quickly.
Q. This initiative is very new, but what is the impact so far?
A. We have heard from a couple of our partners that there were some patients, some postpartum patients that had come to the emergency room and were immediately triaged…Because they wore the bracelet, they were quickly triaged to an OB consult, which is what they needed at the time.
Q. That's great news. If you're a doctor, you probably know what to look out for, but if you're a teacher, or a home visitor, or somebody else who's working with families, what should you look out for?
A. I supervised a home visiting program for many years, and we actually did have this come up. We had a patient that did end up having a postpartum hypertensive episode, and had to go to the hospital, and was kind of on the fence, and we really had to encourage her to go to the hospital.
Providers should look out for headaches that will go away, or that are getting worse over time, dizziness or fainting, changes in vision. body temperature of 100.4 or higher, swelling of the hands and feet, thoughts of harming yourself or your baby … The CDC Hear Her campaign provides a list of symptoms that are warning signs.
Q. If someone notices or experiences one of these warning signs, what should they do?
A. The campaign urges you to connect them with emergency care right away.
Q. What's next for the Bracelet Initiative?
A. The next objective we’re going to be working on is a statewide data management strategy. So, right now, CHA is meeting with hospitals individually to talk about what is feasible, what makes the most sense in terms of outcomes to measure … We’re also continuing this engagement with community, making sure that our community partners know about the Bracelet Initiative, that if they are working with a, postpartum person, that they are encouraging them to wear their bracelet for 12 weeks, that they know the warning signs, and that if they have someone that they’re working with and are experiencing any warning signs, they’re helping to connect them to emergency care right away.
Q. How can people learn more about the Bracelet Initaitive?
Everyone check out the website: cthosp.org/bracelet. There are so many resources there!
New In Sparkler: A new unit of tips for grown-ups is available, providing an overview of the Bracelet Initiative and links to resources about Urgent Maternal Warning Signs.