International organization covers scope of family planning

By Carol Lindsay, RN
June 19, 2002

Engender Health [www.engenderhealth.org] is an organization that works to educate people worldwide about reproductive health services. The site has information about various types of family planning and tips on choosing the most appropriate methods of contraception.

Engender Health, which works in 30 countries, lists each nation's profile and discusses each country's family-planning methods. Professional materials such as videos can be ordered, some for free. The five online courses available do not offer credit, but a certificate of completion can be printed.

The site runs stories related to infection control designed specifically for nurses working in Third World countries. Many articles are available in languages other than English.

Mental illness

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill [www.nami.org] is a nonprofit organization that aims to help people with mental illness. The site offers links to support groups, mental illness education, advocacy and research. Fact sheets on specific types of mental illness include childhood OCD, early onset bipolar disorder, Asperger's disorder, Tourettes's syndrome, teen-age suicide and the subject of dual diagnosis in adolescents.

The site includes information about developing individualized education plans for children with mental illness, rights of parents of children with disabilities and information about transitioning adolescents with mental illness into adult roles.

Teen pregnancy

Each year, nearly half a million teen-age girls give birth in the United States-that's more than 55 babies born to teen mothers every hour.

Geared toward teen-agers, parents and health care professionals, www.teenpregnancy.org is part of a campaign to lower the national teen pregnancy rate. The site has an online quiz for teen-agers, tips, fact sheets, a resource guide and a 17-chapter practical manual for people interested in taking action to prevent teen pregnancy in their communities.

The following PowerPoint presentations can be downloaded: Teen Pregnancy-An Overview, Just the Facts, Hispanic Research Project and selected survey results from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Visitors to the site without the software can download a PowerPoint viewer for free.

Breast-feeding central

La Leche League International was founded in 1956 with the sole purpose of helping nursing mothers. The League reports that each year 750,000 mothers in the United States call the organization with questions. La Leche offers 24-hour telephone counseling.

The group's Web site [www.lalecheleague.org] presents information about the organization and breast-feeding products. Advocacy and professional information available include a listing of conferences, breast-feeding abstracts and an information database, educational offerings, a summary of breast-feeding legislation and citations to breast-feeding publications. The site has an extensive list of questions and answers that could be a valuable resource for new mothers.

Breathe easy

The American Association for Respiratory Care site [www.aarc.org] is designed for respiratory therapists, but also offers a wealth of information on the subject for nurses. The patient education page has information sheets about asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis, oxygen therapy, pollution and tuberculosis. A follow-up respiratory health IQ test can be taken and graded online.

Links are provided to respiratory care news, headline topics, health care organizations and publications, consumer and government sites.