Dads help mums have healthy babies

Jenni Rogers and (from left) Richard Bloomer, Leslie Wilson and Charlie Riley Snr, with "No Grog for 9" brochure, WA.

A Kimberley program to reduce birth disorders is talking to men as well as women about the dangers of alcohol in pregnancy.

Drinking alcohol at any time during pregnancy can cause babies to be born with learning difficulties and physical problems, and to grow up to have social issues. Foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is the umbrella term given to the various disorders caused by drinking alcohol while pregnant.

Jenni Rogers, an Indigenous program worker with the Ord Valley Aboriginal Health Service in Kununurra, Western Australia, believes talking about these risks with men can motivate them to help their pregnant partners avoid alcohol.

It’s an innovative approach for Indigenous communities, where pregnancy and childbirth have traditionally been regarded as women’s business.

“Usually there’s men’s business and women’s business and they’re kept very separate,” says Jenni. “But we have been making men a big focus of our education.

“Men don’t become fathers when the baby’s born. They get congratulated when we know that the wife is pregnant, so really it starts from conception.”

Jenni lives in the Kununurra community, where FASD is a major concern. She says her interest in changing the drinking behaviour of pregnant women is both professional and personal.

“I’ve got a strong interest in this, not just as a health worker but as an Aboriginal woman with four daughters and lots of family here,” she says. “We need to prevent these disorders if our community is to prosper.”

Jenni says that having males and elders involved in tackling FASD makes the community part of the solution.

“At the beginning we had a few female elders saying that we shouldn’t be talking about these birth defects in the presence of males, but a man stood up and said, ‘We’re not talking about anything sexual. It’s growing a healthy baby for our families and the whole community.”

Jenni says it is important for the program to be led by an Indigenous person from the area involved because this empowers the community.

“I just think that having a more personal approach – one that is localised, with people that they know and have seen there forever – helps the project along,” she says.

“It gives it that little bit extra when you have a local person working.”

The Ord Valley program has developed a DVD and posters that are even on the local pub counter and in bottle shop windows. It has conducted surveys and interviews with 63 pregnant Indigenous clients seen at the health service, and educated approximately 600 local young Indigenous men and women about the dangers of FASD.

“There are very few places in Australia taking this approach and I think ours is unique because it started with the grass roots concern of our elders,” says Jenni. “Now everyone is involved. It’s not just mothers – we’ve all got to take an active part.”