unity in:

Helping African American mothers avoid prenatal and postpartum complications

FACULTY MEMBER

Alexis Dunn Amore, PhD, CNM, FACNM, FAAN, assistant professor

PARTNERS/COMMUNITY

Nurse-midwives and other clinicians, the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia, and other pregnancy-related organizations

Not recognizing the severity of physical or emotional symptoms during or after pregnancy can be life-threatening. MAMA LOVE gives African American mothers a tool to prevent that.

Early in 2023, the web-based program MAMA LOVE (mamalove.love) went live. Pregnant women now have a free, accessible, and user-friendly tool to determine the urgency of any symptoms and what they should do and when.

Founder and director Alexis Dunn Amore is an assistant professor in the School of Nursing and a certified nurse-midwife whose work focuses on highrisk pregnancies in communities of color.

Many of her patients, with few other resources at their disposal, often turn to Google or a friend to ask for advice about symptoms. Should I be worried? Call someone? Wait? For symptoms suggesting life-threatening conditions like sepsis, eclampsia, cardiomyopathy, or acute postpartum depression, even a short delay in intervention can be deadly. Amore decided to build a site where women could quickly and easily find information.

When entering the site, 10 boxes pop up with symptoms such as breathlessness, blurred vision, chest pain, thoughts of harming oneself, and not wanting to touch the baby. If the woman acknowledges any of these symptoms, the site tells them to go to the ER or call 911.

If none apply, the pregnant person can select physical, mental, or social factors they are experiencing, and the program assigns them colorcoded advice.

RED indicates symptoms that need immediate emergency follow-up.

YELLOW assures the woman that a symptom needs follow-up with a provider.

BLUE advises the woman to call a clinic or nurse helpline to get more information.

The website also includes links to helplines and other resources.

MAMA LOVE is a community effort, says Amore, built with guidance from local doulas, OB-GYNs, nursemidwives, patients, community organizations, and focus groups. Amore and nurse-midwife and doctoral student Abby Britt 13MSN, CNM, FACNM, MA, met regularly with experts in the APP Hatchery, part of the Georgia Clinical & Translational Science Alliance. The American College of Nurse Midwives helped with the rollout, and the Robert W. Woodruff Fund supported the project. — Sylvia Wrobel IMPACT

“I wish MAMA LOVE had existed during my pregnancy when I was facing lifethreatening eclampsia. Recognizing my symptoms early — and knowing what to do about them — would have made a world of difference.” — MAMA