How Does the Model of Prenatal Care Centering Work?

Carmen Zorrilla, MD, professor of obstetrics and gynecology, University of Puerto Rico, School of Medicine, discusses how the model of prenatal care centering works.

Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability)

“The model of prenatal care centering is a model that has been implemented for more than 20 years. The model works this way: You have a group of 12 pregnant women with whoever they want, a significant other, present during the visits of all prenatal care. Part of the visit has an individual, private conversation with your provider and then instead of having a class, we have a conversation. We have topics that we cover in those conversations, like nutrition, exercise, when [to] come to the hospital, [and] signs of things that are abnormal.

So, in those conversations, people disclose what they want to; you’re not asking people specific questions and are forcing anybody to disclose anything. [Also], we do have groups of women exclusively with diagnoses of Zika, and in those groups, we discuss, in addition to things about pregnancy, the issues of Zika. We also have groups of women with diabetes or women with different other diagnoses, so the issues of confidentiality are not specific because these are just conversations that are part of a group, where people actually learn from each other; we learn from the best practices. It’s fascinating if you are a part of a group you can learn from women with diabetes and they will tell you, some of them will say, ‘Well, orange juice is better than grape juice when I have hypoglycemia,’ and as a physician, I did not know. So, I am also learning with them as well.”