Lamaze International frequently collaborates with stakeholders, researchers and other organizations who share an interest in maternal child health and improving maternity care for families both in the USA and internationally. As part of this collaboration, Lamaze International would like to ask for your help in recruiting pregnant people, people who were pregnant in the past year or even those who are thinking of becoming pregnant to participate as beta testers before the PregSource data collection tool is launched to the public.
The objective of PregSource: Crowdsourcing to Understand Pregnancy (PregSource) is to better understand the range of physical and emotional experiences and alterations in behavior that women have during pregnancy and after giving birth, the impact of these experiences on women’s lives, and the perinatal challenges encountered by special sub-populations of women.
To advance these efforts, here is a some wording that you can use to invite class members, clients and patients to participate in the PregSource beta testing. You are free to use this letter as is, or modify to suite your needs. This would be a great news tidbit to include in your regular e-news, social media postings and share with your classes.
The information obtained from this study will be helpful in improving prenatal care for women. Help Lamaze International and their research partners to successfully test this program. Your effort is greatly appreciated.
Sample Letter
Lamaze International is partnering with Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), part of the National Institutes of Health, on a project called PregSource. PregSource is a crowdsourcing research effort that aims to improve understanding of the range of physical and emotional experiences that women have during pregnancy and after giving birth.
Because PregSource relies on crowdsourcing, we will be gathering information directly from pregnant women themselves, asking them to enter information about their pregnancies and the health of their babies into online questionnaires. Women who use PregSource can view how their responses compare to other PregSource participants, print or email reports to share with their health care team, and receive information from trusted sources on pregnancy-related issues.
PregSource is currently looking for beta testers to help ensure that the online platform is appropriate and that it is working correctly. If you or someone you know is pregnant, thinking about becoming pregnant, or were pregnant in the last year—we want YOU! Your assistance is critical to ensuring that PregSource can meet its goals. Please note that for the pregnant beta testers, we will need to verify some of the information using a copy of their medical records. We are committed to keeping all personal information secure and will destroy the medical record as soon as we have verified the information.
If you are interested, please send your name, stage of pregnancy (or if already delivered) and email address to the NICHD at PregSource@nih.gov
We value your participation and your interest in helping us launch PregSource.