Families First

Southern Health-Santé Sud’s Families First program focuses on building strong family relationships and connecting families with resources to best meet your needs.

Working with families in the community, public health nurses identify areas where the family may benefit from information, support and/or additional resources. One of these resources is Families First which offers home visiting supports, supporting positive parenting from pregnancy to age five by:

• developing strong family relationships
• making connections with community resources to meet their needs
• providing information about parent/child attachment, childhood development (social, emotional, physical and cognitive) and safety

To support newcomers, some Home Visitors are able to speak a number of languages, helping to meet the diversity needs in our region.

For more information, please call a Public Health-Healthy Living office near you.

Resources

Families First – Child and Youth Programs
Families First Brochure

Postpartum Support for Families

Public health nurses offer postpartum services to you and your family by providing:

• A physical assessment of the birthing parent and newborn
• Support for coping with the emotional adjustment to parenting
• information on breastfeeding, nutrition, safety in the home and other topics of interest
• information about or referral to other services that could support you in your parenting journey
• reassurance that you are on the right track

Postpartum Depression

Many expecting parents can experience a wide range of emotions, including ‘baby blues‘. Baby blues usually begins a few days after childbirth and improves within a couple of weeks. Up to 75% of new mothers experience the baby blues.

How do I know I have postpartum depression?

• Strong feelings of sadness or emptiness
• Constant fatigue (even after resting)
• Trouble falling asleep or wanting to sleep all the time
• Uncontrollable crying
• Losing interest in activities you normally enjoy
• Trouble concentrating or making decisions
• Changes in appetite or weight
• Feeling hopeless, trapped or worthless
• Feeling anxious, overwhelmed or out of control
• Worrying a lot about your baby’s health or safety
• No interest or pleasure in your baby
• Scary thoughts or fears about harming the baby

Postpartum depression is treatable

Sometimes parents feel continued anxiety and/or depression. Counseling, medication and support are helpful in treating postpartum depression. A healthcare provider can help you find the right supports and services for your situation.

Where to get help

If these feelings continue or worsen, you may be experiencing postpartum depression. If this is the case, there are many places to get help:

• talk to your public health nurse, your doctor or your midwife
• if you are having thoughts of harming yourself or your baby, or feeling that you can’t cope, please call:
  • 24-hour Crisis Service: 1-888-617-7715 or 204-326-9276
  • 24-hour Manitoba Suicide Line: 1-877-435-7170
• First Nations & Inuit Hope for Wellness 1-855-242-3310
• Women’s Health Clinic Mothers Program for information and resources 1-866-947-1517
• Health Links-Info Santé 1-888-315-9257
• Postpartum Warm Line 204-560-1468 (outside Winnipeg, please state when calling, our volunteers will get back to you)

Resources

• Manitoba Healthy Schools

Expecting a baby?

The Public Health-Healthy Living team and their community service partners want to work with you to ensure you have the healthiest pregnancy and baby possible. Public health nurses can support you and your family during your pregnancy and after you have had your baby.

Here are some ways public health nurses can support you to make healthy choices around your pregnancy:

• accessing prenatal health information and resources
• getting the nutrition you need
• getting the emotional supports you need to grow and flourish
• accessing a doctor or midwife for prenatal care
• learning about feeding and caring for a new baby
• finding the community services that meet your needs

We encourage anyone who is pregnant to self-refer by calling their local public health nurse. We also accept referrals from midwives, physicians, social workers, and other health or social service providers.

Healthy Living

To contact a Healthy Living Facilitator in your area 204-428-2736 Email

Action to improve the things that make ALL of us healthy depends on ALL of our support. We encourage you to start a conversation and share what you know.

Southern Health-Santé Sud recognizes that creating supportive social and physical environments around people by focusing on the root causes of illness and injury has the greatest potential to support health and wellness and improve ways to well-being, for example: goes a long way towards improving health and wellness.

Healthy living is about making responsible choices but it is also about what choices, good sleep, healthy eating, being physically active and not smoking can help us stay healthy and reduce the risk of illness or serious injury. Creating supportive environments that enable healthy behaviors and make them more attainable and sustainable is a big part of healthy living.

To better support healthy living we want to partner with, families, governments, community groups and organizations to encourage:

• health for all (health and racial equity)
• physical activity
• harm reduction and injury prevention
• mental well-being
• tobacco reduction
• oral health
• healthy food choices
• healthy built environments

For strategies and guidelines for eating healthier and living better, contact your local Public Health-Healthy Living office or check out Manitoba’s Healthy Living Guide.

Additional Resources

• Healthy Aging
• Healthy Schools
• Smokers’ Helpline
• Physical Activity Promotion

Parents & Parents to Be

Public Health-Healthy Living 204-870-0785 Email

Pregnancy and Baby

In planning your healthy and safe pregnancy, we encourage you and your family to explore our Public Health-Healthy Living programs and services. Talk to a public health nurse to learn about a range of topics including maternal changes, birthing options, labour and delivery, baby’s growth and development, post-partum support for families, immunizations and so much more.

Parenting Stages

Thinking about your health now gives your family the best chance to move towards the flourishing. Through public health nurses, you have access to various resources and supports such as Families First, Healthy Baby, Children’s Therapy Initiative. Public health can support your family with:

• Pregnancy
• Breastfeeding
• Postpartum Support for families
• Parenting conversations that support attachment
• Child Health Clinics – Well baby visits offer variety of options:
  • Assessment and support for you child’s growth and development
  • Immunizations

Towards Flourishing

Towards Flourishing is a provincial approach that our Public Health-Healthy Living staff incorporate into the services they offer. Topics for discussion and everyday strategies are offered as opportunities to flourish and promote positive feelings, thoughts, relationships with ourselves, others and how we see the world.

Resources

• Healthy Child Coalitions – South East
• Healthy Child Coalitions – Central
• Manitoba Healthy Schools
• Postpartum Depression Association

Communicable Disease Prevention & Control

Public health nurses work as a team with primary care providers, Public Health Inspectors, Drinking Water Officers, Cadham Provincial Lab and Medical Officers of Health to prevent, respond to and investigate reportable communicable diseases as outlined by the Public Health Act and the Manitoba Health Communicable Disease Protocols. Inspectors also provide health advice and information, such as prevention and intervention strategies, to individuals responsible for or afflicted with an enteric illness.

Washing your hands properly, covering your cough and being immunized are still the best ways to prevent the spread of disease.

It is important that suspected and confirmed communicable diseases be reported to prevent the continued spread of food-borne and water-borne diseases in the community. If you have questions about diseases that are spread person-to-person, through food or water sources, or by exposure to animals or insects, please contact your local Public Health-Healthy Living office or call Health Links-Info Santé.

Healthy Sexuality

At Southern Health-Santé Sud we care about the healthy sexuality of all people in the region. We offer sexual and reproductive health care, information and education to help you make informed choices. If you have questions, it’s important that you speak with your health care provider or call a public health office near you.

Be Wise: Immunize!

Public Health-Healthy Living 204-428-2772 Email

Immunizations (or vaccines) help the immune system learn how to recognize and fight the germs that cause diseases. Immunizations help protect kids and adults against serious diseases and are known to be very safe.

Request for Immunization Record

EChart Manitoba can provide you a copy of your immunization records. Access the Request to Access Personal Health Information or call your local Public Health-Healthy Living office.

Submitting an Immunization Record

If you received immunizations in another province or outside of Canada, they are not automatically added to your record in Manitoba. Please submit a copy of your immunization records to Manitoba Health so they can be added to your immunization record or call your local Public Health-Healthy Living office.

Resources

• Routine Immunization Schedules
• A Parent’s Guide to Vaccination
• Immunization – Manitoba
• Immunize Canada
• Caring for Kids

Living with a Chronic Disease

Chronic diseases are long-term conditions that usually progress slowly over time.

This includes conditions such as:

• heart disease
• diabetes
• osteoporosis
• high blood pressure or cholesterol
• asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• depression
• arthritis
• gut and gastrointestinal disease
• many others

Chronic disease management requires ongoing care and support to assist anyone impacted by a chronic health condition with the medical care, knowledge, skills and resources needed to better manage on a day-to-day basis.

Southern Health-Santé Sud is committed to working with you, health care providers and community partners to improve chronic disease management programs and services available to assist those impacted by a chronic health condition live a healthier, longer life. Our team can help you stay connected with people and help you cope with your illness. Our commitment is to work with you and your family to promote living healthy through:

• group visits – to help you manage your health through education and discussion of topics such as healthy eating, exercise, use of tobacco products; medication; management of chronic conditions
• individual visits – to assess, educate and develop your care plan; to help you set personal goals for your best health possible
• follow up visits – for ongoing education and support
• regular assessment for complications of chronic diseases and their risk factors
• education sessions open to the general public
• training and support to other health care providers

Anyone living in Southern Health-Santé Sud is eligible for this service, free of charge. You can self-refer or be referred by a health care provider. Expand list below to access a chronic disease intake site near you.

Resources

• Diabetes Canada
• Communicable Disease Control
• Dial-a-Dietitian
• TeleCARE
• Smoker’s Helpline

Nutrition & Healthy Eating

Primary Care 204-388-2053 Email

There are great benefits to leading a healthy lifestyle. Eating healthy and being active are two things you can do to lower your risk of disease, increase energy, maintain a healthy body weight, build stronger muscles and bones and improve your overall health. Families and caregivers play an important role in creating a positive eating environment. The early years are a great time for young children to discover new foods and develop a love of eating healthy. Our teenagers also need to eat healthy because they are still growing and developing. For more information on healthy eating, access the Canada Food Guide available in 10 different languages.

Registered Dietitians – here to support you!

Registered Dietitians are essential members of the health care team and are located across the region in hospitals, personal care homes, community settings, primary care centres and clinics. Registered Dietitians are part of the Chronic Disease Education Teams and My Health Teams.

Dietitians provide support through outpatient nutritional counseling, group facilitation on topics including: balanced eating and portion control, reading nutrition labels, grocery shopping, meal planning and healthy cooking.

Would you like to see a registered dietitian in your community for nutrition counseling, but don’t know where to go? Call Manitoba’s Dial-a-Dietitian hotline 1-877-830-2892 to find out where you can access a registered dietitian or receive personal, professional and free nutrition information.

Resources

• Chronic Disease Self-Referral Form
• Eating Disorders
• Nutrition News