American Gastro Association IBD Patient Influencer Program

As some of you know already, I am so excited to be a part of the American Gastro Association’s Patient Influencer Program this year. I just dropped a podcast episode explaining what the program is, my involvement, and then what that means as far as the content I’ll be sharing. 

The five key takeaways from the first session were pretty powerful for me so if you are interested definitely take a listen. 

I also will be introduced to new tools and resources to share with you all. This past session I learned about the IBD Parenthood Project site and was so excited about it, I probably have brought it up to every person I’ve talked to in the past two weeks. 

IBD Parenthood Project is a site created by AGA that provides accurate and up to date information about IBD through every stage of family planning. I said it in the podcast, I can’t believe I didn’t know this existed, and I hope by sharing here we can get it out in front of more people who need it. The site has a patient tool kit with a ton of information to help you feel empowered and advocate for yourself with confidence throughout TTC, pregnancy, and the postnatal period. A few of my favorite things are a checklist to walk through with your doctor and the myth vs fact sheet about IBD and fertility/pregnancy. While this doesn’t solve the whole issue of maternal IBD care, it does get us moving in the right direction. Patient education is power!

Keep following along on crohnicallyblonde.com, via the Crohnically Mom Podcast, and on Instagram @crohnicallyblonde for new information and session updates. We have our next meeting this week! 

You can listen to my recap episode below or on Spotify or iTunes.