{"id":91,"date":"2012-11-06T20:15:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T20:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/?p=91"},"modified":"2014-07-16T22:27:04","modified_gmt":"2014-07-16T22:27:04","slug":"advocacy-for-at","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/advocacy-for-at\/","title":{"rendered":"Advocacy for AT"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Shannon Coe<\/a>, CFILC Program Coordinator<\/p>\n

My husband and I are expecting a baby soon, and we had planned to tour the UC Davis Hospital birthing suite where we will be having our baby.  However, it wasn’t <\/span>until I read  \u201cAT on Your Due Date.\u201d<\/a> <\/span><\/span>that I realized that there were some important questions I never thought about asking the facility. <\/span> <\/span>I am a soon-to-be mom with a physical disability, and I did not even think about physical access or the types of AT I would need before and after my delivery.  <\/span>I assumed all hospitals would be accessible. <\/span><\/span>
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During the birthing suite tour, I looked in the bathrooms and found that none of the rooms were wheelchair accessible nor had AT that would work for me.  <\/span>All the bathrooms I saw were tiny and had one step to get into the shower.  <\/span>I needed a bathroom with a roll-in-shower.  Furthermore, <\/span>the postpartum rooms were small and narrow, which would not have accommodated my wheelchair.  <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Shannon at the doctor’s office being weighed by an accessible scale<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Immediately following the tour, I approached the nurse who led it and asked her if there were birthing suites with roll-in showers.  <\/span>She shook her head and told me no, that all the rooms are the same size and all the bathrooms have steps. I left the birthing suite realizing I needed to be an advocate for myself.  <\/span>Fortunately, I had a work contact and colleague that also works for UC Davis and spoke to her about the the lack of physical access in the birthing suites.  This colleague was able to<\/span> forward my concerns to the department directors at the UC Davis Hospital.  <\/span>The directors responded  to my concern –finding a birthing suite with more space to accommodate my wheelchair and a roll-in shower.  <\/span>I then also asked my OBGYN doctor for an accessible scale to monitor my pregnancy weight.  <\/span>They are now going to provide me with the AT I need at the hospital.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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If I had not read Christina\u2019s blog before I visited the birthing tour, my birthing experience may have been different.  <\/span>I was fortunate to have the time to resolve the physical access and AT issues before I go into labor.  <\/span>It is important for parents with disabilities to network and share their perspectives on AT resources that would empower independence and advocacy for others. <\/span><\/div>\n
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Does anyone have a story or resources for parents with disabilities to share with the AT community?  Please enter it in the comment section below<\/b>.<\/span>
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by Shannon Coe, CFILC Program Coordinator My husband and I are expecting a baby soon, and we had planned to tour the UC Davis Hospital birthing suite where we will be having our baby.  However, it wasn’t until I read  \u201cAT on Your Due Date.\u201d that I realized that there were some important questions I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3],"tags":[13,9,2,7,24,16,15],"class_list":["post-91","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recreation","category-success-stories","tag-ada","tag-advocacy","tag-at-network","tag-at-professional","tag-insurance","tag-mobility","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abilitytools.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}