Introducing the 5 Minute Preconception Health Series

The Centre for Research and Studies on Procreative Health was founded in 2020 within Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. In what sense does the Centre deal with procreative health? The research and training work is aimed at promoting procreative health, i.e. all those possible interventions that can help people to take care of themselves and to carry out their maternity and paternity project in a conscious and responsible way.

Why this focus on procreative health? Because we have become aware of some phenomena that are becoming more and more accentuated and on which it is necessary to intervene: an increase in the conditions of sterility and infertility; inattention to preconception health; the widespread lack of esteem for motherhood and fatherhood; the rising birth rate. From 2019, when there was a fertility rate of 1.29, it reached a rate of 1.24 in 2020 and then rose again in 2021 to 1.25. This means that in 2021 there were so few births that for every 7 births, 12 deaths were recorded, no longer ensuring generational renewal.

What are the objectives of the Centre? Training and information, especially for the younger generations. In fact, information alone is not enough, because the challenges to be faced are complex choices regarding unhealthy lifestyles and health-risky behaviors. A training intervention is therefore necessary, which requires a continuous and personalized educational approach. To do this, however, we must first of all know what exists: it is necessary to study what are the lifestyles, the behaviors at risk of the female and male population of childbearing age, in order to identify - in the light of the data collected - what the intervention strategies can be. Once implemented, the results will have to be monitored in order to correct the strategies themselves. The Centre for Research and Studies on Procreative Health also has another role, namely to accompany and support the decisions that are taken at the level of Government and Regions, especially with regard to policies in favour of the family, the birth rate and young people.