About 15-20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Miscarriage can be a difficult experience for many women, as our medical director Linda Prine, MD discussed in her recent blog post. In honor of national Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day on October 15th we would like to share our recent work on miscarriage care.

Studies have shown that when women are actively involved in deciding how to treat their miscarriage they have better health outcomes. The Reproductive Health Access Project (RHAP) is committed to improving access to all three forms of miscarriage care. In the past year we have done this through expanding our miscarriage training and research efforts.

In September RHAP selected our first cohort of Miscarriage Care Initiative (MCI) grantees. These five family physicians will receive intensive support from RHAP over the next year to integrate and expand miscarriage treatment in their primary practices.

The 2014-2015 grantees are:

Joey Banks, MD – Dr. Banks is a community preceptor at the Family Medicine Residency of Western Montana and is a family physician at Blue Mountain Clinic in Missoula, Montana. Her goal is to integrate miscarriage care into the residency program, including at the residency’s community health center.

Erin Hendriks, MD – Dr. Hendriks is faculty at the Wayne State/Sinai Grace Family Medicine Residency Program and is the Director of Women’s Health at the Thea Bowman Community Health Center in Detroit, Michigan. Her goal is to integrate medication and MVA for miscarriage management into her community health center and residency program.

Kristen Miranda, MD – Dr. Miranda is a provider at Clinica Alta Vista/La Clinica de la Raza community health center in Oakland, CA. She plans to offer medication and MVA for miscarriage management at her clinic and to be a referral source for the larger network of her community health center.

Glenda Rios, MD – Dr. Rios is faculty at the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. She has also been a provider at Mile Square Health system, a network of community health centers, for over 15 years. Dr. Rios is using the grant to offer medication and MVA for miscarriage management at her health center.

Tabatha Wells, MD – Dr. Wells is faculty at Southern Illinois University (SIU) School of Medicine and a provider at SIU Center for Family Medicine, a community health center in Springfield, IL. She plans to provide medication and MVA for miscarriage at her health center and help other staff at her site gain MVA skills as well.

Stay tuned for more updates on our MCI grantees. And soon RHAP will share information on our recent research on miscarriage care access in primary care.