Mount Sinai Collaborates With PUSH for Empowered Pregnancy to Launch Nation’s First Rainbow Clinic Dedicated to Reducing Stillbirths
Clinic will provide enhanced prenatal care to patients who have experienced maternal complications, lead research to address nationwide crisis in women’s health
NEW YORK - The Mount Sinai Health System has announced a collaboration with PUSH for Empowered Pregnancy to establish the nation’s first multidisciplinary specialty clinic for women who have experienced stillbirth.
Known as the Mount Sinai – Rainbow Clinic and scheduled to open this month, it will support women and their families who have experienced stillbirth by providing enhanced clinical care and psychological support in subsequent pregnancies to help reduce fear, anxiety, and future perinatal losses. The clinic will be housed within the Raquel and Jaime Gilinski Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
About 23,000 pregnancies, or about one in 170 births, nationwide result in stillbirth each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In New York City, there are approximately 900 stillbirths each year. Data also shows that women of color are more likely to experience a stillbirth, with the risk among Black women twice as high as any other group. Moreover, women who have experienced stillbirth are almost five times as likely to experience another stillbirth or severe maternal complication. But with greater awareness, support, and high-quality care, studies have found that more than a quarter of stillbirths in the United States are preventable.
“Our goal for the Rainbow Clinic is to help women who have experienced the loss of a baby to achieve a successful pregnancy by providing them with access to state-of-the art services and support that goes beyond standard prenatal care to meet all of their needs,” said Joanne L. Stone, MD, MSHCDL, Ellen and Howard C. Katz Chair of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Mount Sinai Health System. “I am excited to be part of this undertaking and to offer patients a champion for a positive outcome through equitable care.”
Dr. Stone is well known [...] as the go-to specialist to see when you become pregnant following a loss. -- Samantha Banerjee, NYC-area loss mom & Executive Director of PUSH
“Dr. Stone is well known among women and families throughout the New York City community as the go-to specialist to see when you become pregnant following a loss and want to ensure that you’re getting the best possible care and support during the harrowing experience of trying to bring home a ‘rainbow baby’ after the death of your previous child,” said Samantha Banerjee, Executive Director of PUSH, the nonprofit foundation dedicated to driving down the incidence of stillbirth.
Fernanda Sheridan, Medical Co-Director of PUSH and the stillbirth mom who pioneered the idea of bringing the Rainbow Clinic concept to the United States, elaborates: “Dr. Stone’s expertise is a major factor in our decision to partner with Mount Sinai to launch this concept in the United States. We also recognize Mount Sinai as one of the most innovative hospital systems in the world and we believe that once we open this Rainbow Clinic to effectively reduce stillbirths, every health care center nationwide will adopt this approach to establish their own clinics.”
"Once we open this Rainbow Clinic to effectively reduce stillbirths, every health care center nationwide will adopt this approach." -- Fernanda Sheridan, PUSH Medical Co-Director & loss mom who pioneered the #NYCRainbowClinic idea
The Mount Sinai – Rainbow Clinic will replicate the Rainbow Clinic model established in the United Kingdom by Alexander Heazell, MBChB(Hons), PhD, MRCOG, an internationally recognized leader in stillbirth research. The multidisciplinary staff will undergo specialized training to better understand the emotional needs of families and to prevent any retraumatization and minimize negative psychological impacts. The clinic’s care will be customized around the needs of each patient and family based on a pre-conception consultation that includes a review of their medical history and determines a cause of the previous stillbirth, as well as a strategy for conception and pregnancy to achieve positive outcomes. All patients will be able to access a range of services including mental health support, nutritional guidance, ultrasounds, and other tests during the progression of the pregnancy. Patients will also have access to monitoring and testing services that are typically not available through other prenatal programs, such as estimated placental volume (EPV) monitoring, which can help guide the course of treatment and care.
In addition to patient-tailored treatment, the Mount Sinai – Rainbow Clinic will conduct new research to uncover insights on risk factors that contribute to stillbirth. Dr. Stone will explore opportunities for collaboration with other health centers.
"It is also imperative to gain the necessary insights to prevent stillbirths from happening in any pregnancy [and] address this ongoing crisis.” -- Dr. Joanne Stone, Mount Sinai – Rainbow Clinic founder & President of SMFM
“As important as it is to provide care to patients who have lived through this trauma and improve their future course of treatment, it is also imperative to gain the necessary insights to prevent stillbirths from happening in any pregnancy,” she said. “The more data we can gather from our diverse patient population at Mount Sinai, the bigger the impact we can have in addressing this ongoing crisis.”
In continued support of women’s health, the Mount Sinai Health System has received a multimillion-dollar commitment from Raquel K. and Jaime Gilinski for the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Science. The gift is in honor of Michael Brodman, MD, who served with distinction for 19 years as System Chair of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science and is now Chair Emeritus. Mrs. Gilinski, who serves on the Boards of Trustees at Mount Sinai, and her family have been long-standing advocates of women’s health at Mount Sinai.
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*Did you know?* Stillbirth families collectively raised the $190,000 needed to fund Year 1 of the Mount Sinai – Rainbow Clinic (read the full story here) and have committed to raising a total of $600,000 over 3 years to establish this desperately needed pregnancy after loss care in the US! Help PUSH meet our obligation to Fund Year 2 & 3 by donating here.
Are you a healthcare provider interested in providing world-class pregnancy after loss care? You can access the same training the Mount Sinai – Rainbow Clinic team completed, created *by* patients who have experienced pregnancy after loss (PAL) firsthand, and informed by leading experts in mental health and perinatal bereavement, and international researchers on the prevention of adverse pregnancy outcomes. Contact us for a code to preview the training modules for free.
PAL Families! You deserve the VERY BEST care in your subsequent pregnancy after your loss! View contact info for our list of recommended providers across the US, including our flagship collaboration with Mount Sinai –Rainbow Clinic, here.
Enough is ENOUGH. It's time to #EndPreventableStillbirth. Join us in October as we march on DC with 23,000 empty strollers - one for each child born still in the past year - to call on our nations leaders in government, medicine, and public health for change. The Big PUSH to End Preventable Stillbirth - more info & RSVP here: www.thebigpushmarch.org
About PUSH for Empowered Pregnancy
We're on a mission to end preventable stillbirth, and we're not taking no for an answer.
65 babies are dying in the second half of pregnancy every single day in the U.S. - that’s 23,000 each year, most of them otherwise healthy, and all of them deeply loved. Many of these babies were our babies, and many of them could have been saved.
PUSH for Empowered Pregnancy exists for one reason, and one reason alone: to kickstart the pace of change in the US using big, bold, innovative action to save as many babies' lives as possible, as quickly as possible. We are a diverse coalition of bereaved parents from around the country, and we are working closely with trailblazing medical researchers, courageous doctors, and other hardworking allies to drive down the incidence of stillbirth in the United States over the next decade by any means necessary.
No family should have to endure what we have endured. We are saying ENOUGH.
#UnitedWePush For Families, For Babies. For Change.
Learn more at www.pushpregnancy.org
PUSH Press Contact: Marny Smith, 332-244-PUSH (7874) x200, media@pushpregnancy.org
About the Mount Sinai Health System
The Mount Sinai Health System is New York City's largest academic medical system, encompassing eight hospitals, a leading medical school, and a vast network of ambulatory practices throughout the greater New York region. Mount Sinai advances medicine and health through unrivaled education and translational research and discovery to deliver care that is the safest, highest-quality, most accessible and equitable, and the best value of any health system in the nation. The Health System includes approximately 7,300 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture ambulatory surgery centers; more than 415 ambulatory practices throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked on U.S. News & World Report's "Honor Roll" of the top 20 U.S. hospitals and is top in the nation by specialty: No. 1 in Geriatrics and top 20 in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Neurology/Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Pulmonology/Lung Surgery, Rehabilitation, and Urology. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 12 in Ophthalmology. Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital is ranked in U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Children’s Hospitals” among the country’s best in four out of 10 pediatric specialties. The Icahn School of Medicine is one of three medical schools that have earned distinction by multiple indicators: ranked in the top 20 by U.S. News & World Report's "Best Medical Schools," aligned with a U.S. News & World Report "Honor Roll" Hospital, and No. 14 in the nation for National Institutes of Health funding. Newsweek’s “The World’s Best Smart Hospitals” ranks The Mount Sinai Hospital as No. 1 in New York and in the top five globally, and Mount Sinai Morningside in the top 20 globally.
For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Mount Sinai Press Contact: Stacy A. Anderson, (347) 346-3390, stacy.anderson@mountsinai.org