What is it like to be pregnant in a rural community?

Sawtooth Mountain Clinic is asking mothers to bring their voice to the conversation about pregnancy related health care in rural communities.

Sawtooth Mountain Clinic is joining the Essentia/Ely Clinic in participation in a survey sponsored by the University of Minnesota. In the summer of 2015 both Ely and Grand Marais lost insurance coverage for doing planned deliveries in their communities. This kind of occurrence is becoming more common in smaller towns across the United States. When the communities looked at published studies about obstetrical care across this country it became clear that there was an important voice missing – no one had asked the mothers what they thought of their experience.

Nathan Ratner is a medical student at the University of Minnesota Duluth, School of Medicine. He was on a clinical rotation in Grand Marais and listened to some of the stories being told by care providers and patients about what it is like to be pregnant in Cook County. He began working on a way to measure and track those experiences and with the help of the faculty at UMD he developed this survey. After further talk with other students at UMD/School of Medicine, Ely’s Clinic agreed to join in on the survey and increase the variety of voices and experiences.

Every mother who was pregnant in Cook County or had any obstetrical care at Ely Clinic from 1990 – 2016 is being asked to fill out the survey. Names have been gleaned from Clinic records and the surveys will be mailed out. All envelopes are being addressed within their communities – privacy will be maintained as there will not be names included on the surveys themselves. The surveys can be filled out online or by paper. There will be extra surveys available at each Clinic as there may be names that were missed. The surveys should be arriving at homes by mid-November and the survey will close January 31, 2017. The data from the surveys will be evaluated in the Public Health Department at the University of Minnesota and results brought back to the communities for discussion in the spring of 2017.

This survey is intended to learn more about how women experience pregnancy – whether or not the eventual delivery was within or was outside of the community.

If you have more questions or feel your name may have been missed for the mailing, please call the Sawtooth Mountain Clinic at 387-2330.