COLUMBIA – Healthy Blue Missouri and its affiliated organization, Elevance Health, is partnering with a nonprofit called Count the Kicks to expand stillbirth prevention efforts throughout Missouri.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines stillbirths as the loss of a baby at 20 weeks or more during pregnancy. CDC Wonder data also notes that for Missouri families, one in 171 pregnancies end in stillbirth, and families in Missouri are 6.5 times more likely to lose a baby to stillbirth than to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
Through this partnership, Count the Kicks was able to add a new Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) survey on the Count the Kicks app, such as whether or not they have access to nutritious food, safe housing or child care.
“If moms need help in any of those areas, they’re going to be connected to that resource,” Emily Price, CEO of Healthy Birth Day, the parent company of Count the Kicks, said. “It’s going to get them safe housing, nutritious food child care within their zip code.”
The free app has been around since 2015, but the new partnership with Healthy Blue Missouri aims to spread awareness to a high-risk state. It allows users to see their kick-counting history, rate the strength of their baby’s movements, set daily reminders and be able to count for single babies and twins.
“The reason why this is a life-saving tool is because when a baby’s movements changed, that could be a red flag, that there is something going wrong in pregnancy,” Price said.
In terms of stillbirth causes, one noteworthy cause is a lack of awareness.
“One of the most urgent public health issues in Missouri is the kind of unfavorable maternal and pregnancy related health outcomes that the state has experienced in recent years,” Dr. Nadim Kanafani, Healthy Blue’s medical director, said.
Count the Kicks is a nonprofit specifically focused on stillbirth prevention. According to the CDC, stillbirth is a national public health crisis. CDC Wonder data also shows that “nearly 30% of stillbirths can be prevented when expectant parents are informed on the importance of tracking their baby’s movements daily starting at 28 weeks.”
Maria Walsh is a Count the Kicks ambassador who lives in Kansas City with her husband and two children. Nine years ago, she was an expectant mother who gave birth to a stillborn son.
“We went in to think that we were delivering our healthy baby boy, and he had passed,” Walsh said.
Walsh was a first-time mother when she gave birth to her stillborn son, Oliver. She said she believes Oliver would still be here if her doctor asked more open-ended questions during her pregnancy.
“When I said, ‘My movements changing,’ all they just said is, ‘Movement changes at the end. That’s normal.’ What we’re trying to get our providers to ask is, ‘Tell me about the movement.’ Make it a more open-ended question,” Walsh said.
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Walsh did not find out about Count the Kicks until seven years after Oliver passed, but she said she got involved as a way to honor her son.
“This was something that just kind of sang to my heart and just seemed right to me to become an ambassador for Missouri to help other families,” she said.
Walsh also said she wishes she knew about the app at the time because of the data it provides.
“I just really feel like it would have given me the power to show that things were not what they were supposed to be,” Walsh said.
According to Price, the issue of stillbirths is a crisis containing another crisis.
“Black women are two times at greater risk to lose their babies to stillbirth than white women,” Price said. “Asian Pacific Islander families are also at greater risk, and Hispanic families are also at greater risk of losing their babies to stillbirth.”
In addition to making the app available in 16 languages, Kanafani says that by collecting demographic data, Healthy Blue is able to further its mission beyond surface level expectations.
“I don’t think insurance anymore, especially in Medicaid, is just paying the bills,” he said. “It’s really, we need to transform how we do business.”
Since the app’s launch in 2015, it has been downloaded in over 140 countries and in all 50 states. According to Count the Kicks, over 215,000 expectant parents have downloaded the app to track their children’s movements.
With the new initiative, Count the Kicks hopes to save an average of 136 babies per year in Missouri.
“It might take a few more minutes, but it may be the difference,” Walsh said.
The app is available in the iOS and Google Play app stores.