CME (Continuing Medical Education) program for prenatal oral health

Title: Prenatal oral health: Risk assessment and counseling to support successful outcomes.

Background: Increasingly, women’s oral health is being recognized to be a significant predictor for their general health and quality of life: (i.e. premature birth, diabetes, heart problems, osteoporosis, pneumonia, stroke etc). As oral health is significantly behavioral health and life styles, providing information to encourage healthy choices and regular dental visits to ensure control of oral problems is the only way to support oral health. These concerns are gaining special attention for prenatal health. Obstetric visits provide a “captive” environment to encourage women to appropriate oral health and to understand the intimate relationship of their oral health knowledge to the future oral health of their infants.

The goal of the presentation is to provide prenatal health professionals the means to provide risk assessment and counsel women to appropriate oral health activity and seek dental visits prior to, during and after pregnancy. As the risk concerns for periodontal infections are predictable and can be easily identified, timely risk assessment, counseling and dental visits are essential for prenatal health.

Upon completion of the program, attendees should be able to:

1. Understand the relationship of periodontal infections to PLBW.
2. Know general concerns of poor oral health to women.
3. Be able to ask appropriate questions about oral health of their patients.
4. Provide effective oral health counseling to their patients.
5. Encourage women to seek dental care dental supervision around their pregnancy.

This program is appropriate for any health professionals who encounter women (e.g. social workers, EIP professionals, case managers etc). The program includes a pre and post assessment for attendees. We would also like to provide a follow up assessments (i.e. 6 months later) to determine activity of health professionals.

All behavioral data can be provided on request to the program sponsor.