Greetings Valued Customer,

Vida's Spring Health Update

In This Issue:

A Message from Chris Spence, Director of E-Learning Technology
Introducing Your Green Guide to Pregnancy! Now Available on DVD.
Managing Environmental Risks in Pregnancy Workshops
All Babies Cry Update!
Project Progress Report

Forward this message to a friend

Your Green Guide to Pregnancy Trailer on YouTube!

Click here

Vida Selected to Participate in National Institutes of Health Commercialization Assistance Program (CAP)

The Commercialization Assistance Program (CAP), sponsored by the National Institutes of Health is designed to assist NIH SBIR Phase II award winners transition their SBIR-developed technologies into the marketplace. Vida is one of about 80 companies selected to participate in the program.

How to Calm a Crying Baby:

Share your funny/inventive calming a crying baby stories!

Your story will help Vida to craft tips for

our All Babies Cry Intervention.

To share your story or get some great

"calming" tips visit:

www.cryingbabystories.com

Online Childbirth Education

Vida is excited about the number of interested parties requesting information on the pending release of Vida's Online Childbirth Education suite. To receive more information or to be added to our waiting list sign up here or contact Aimee Arvan at Aimee.Arvan@vida-health.com

Project Progress Report

Workplace Violence Training for Nurses: Staff at Vida are creating a web-based course with video case studies to help nurses understand, assess, respond to -- and prevent -- physical and emotional violence in the workplace. Scripting for the first of 5 modules is currently in development. Vida has recently hired a project manager to oversee the project development.

After School Gets Moving: Our partnership with Playworks, a nationally recognized nonprofit organization that supports learning by providing safe, healthy physical activity to schools is well underway. After visits to Boston public schools, Vida is finalizing the site selection for filming. Vida has also hired a new project manager to actively oversee script development and the creation of the game compendium.

For information on all current projects, please contact Aimee Arvan at Aimee.Arvan@vida-health.com or visit www.vida-health.com/research

Keep up with the latest

Vida News!

Follow Vida on twitter @VidaHealth

Subscribe to Vida's YouTube Channel!

Become a Vida fan on facebook!

Subscribe to Vida's Childbirth Media Center on YouTube!

Subscribe for Vida Blog Updates!

Director of E-Learning Technology

It's been an eventful "rookie season" for me here at Vida Health Communications. I came on board in early October to orchestrate the development of an interactive courseware platform and to oversee the integration of e-learning technologies with Vida's curricular materials. The primary focus of these efforts so far has been construction of the "Vida Course Player": a lightweight, scalable web application that delivers a variety of engaging, media-rich learning opportunities to our clients and customers. We have founded our work on the premise that the internet is an increasingly necessary medium for teaching and learning in the 21st century. For this reason, we have invested a considerable amount of time and effort to ensure that Vida's digital course offerings take advantage of the medium's many affordances and are thus delivered in an accessible, responsive format. This is, of course, no small feat. So I have spent the better part of the last three months hunkered down in my new "corner office" (though some might call it "an office in a corner") wearing out the keys on my beloved Macbook Pro to bring this exciting vision to life.

Before arriving at Vida, I devoted most of my professional life to the study and practice of education. Upon graduating from Williams College in the spring of 2000, I accepted a position in the Massachusetts public schools and spent the following seven years teaching science and coaching football at a suburban high school. It was during this time that I first discovered an interest in software development as I began creating small applications to support student learning in my classroom. Inspired by the success of these endeavors, I left the public schools in the fall of 2007 to pursue my masters degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education [HGSE]. I enrolled in the Technology, Innovation, and Education program wherein I enjoyed many wonderful opportunities to extend my programming skills and understanding of educational technology. After graduation, I co-founded a small educational media company that services the e-learning industry in various parts of the country. While my work at Vida and elsewhere keeps me rather busy, I still manage to find time once a week to revisit the classroom. I currently serve as teaching fellow and lab instructor for two courses at HGSE: Educational Software Design and Universal Design for Learning.

For more information, please contact Aimee Arvan at Aimee.Arvan@vida-health.com

Introducing Your Green Guide to Pregnancy - Now Available on DVD!

Vida is happy to announce the release ofYour Green Guide to Pregnancy: Creating a Healthier Prenatal Environment! This program was produced with a small business innovative research grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health & Safety (R43ES014495). It aims to provide pregnant women with practical steps to achieve a health and environmentally safe pregnancy.

Chapters Include:
*Breathe-Smoke Free Air
*Stay Beautiful, Sensibly
*Avoid Chemicals at Home
*Eat Healthy Food Prepared Safely

Dr. Charles Lockwood, Chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology Yale-New Haven Hospital, says Your Green Guide to Pregnancy is "Terrific... an important resource for all pregnant women!" This program empowers women to make informed and healthy choices throughout their pregnancy. The DVD contains the program in both English and Spanish.Your Green Guide to Pregnancy is available on Amazon.com.

This month Vida will be releasing the professional version, Your Green Guide to Pregnancy: Practical Strategies for Reducing Environmental Risk, a toolkit to help prenatal healthcare providers and educators provide anticipatory guidance around this often confusing issue. The professional edition of this program includes a professional resources CD-ROM that contains a

library of educational resources including a detailed Workshop Leader's Guide, flyers, evaluation forms, a computer slide show presentation and full color printable handouts. All materials for distribution to workshop participants are in English and Spanish.

If you are interested in learning more about the release of the professional version of this program, please click here or contact Aimee Arvan at Aimee.Arvan@vida-health.com

Vida's Managing Environmental Risks in Pregnancy Workshops

Vida is currently in the midst of evaluating our newest product Your Green Guide to Pregnancy. Through a study funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Vida is testing the effectiveness of a workshop and DVD. Led by a bi-lingual childbirth educator, this media-based workshop aims to teach pregnant women how to protect their fetus from risks in the environment.

While the majority of the women attending the workshops will be English speakers, approximately 20% of the women will attend the workshop in Spanish. The Massachusetts Women, Infants and Children program (WIC) has provided Vida with locations to hold these workshops and assisted Vida in recruiting participants into our study as well.

With the help of the nutrition staff at WIC locations in Cambridge, Dorchester, Lawrence, Lowell and Roxbury, 46 women have attended Vida's workshops so far and 41 women are enrolled for upcoming workshops. With data from the three interviews each participant receives, Vida hopes to find that this program has not only made a difference for the women in this study, but will also continue to be a resource helping to contribute to healthier pregnancies for years to come.

For more information, please contact Betsy Peixotto at Betsy.Peixotto@vida-health.com or visit www.vida-health.com/research

All Babies Cry Update

Vida has received Phase II funding for the All Babies Cry project following the submission of our progress report in January. Vida's production team continues to film parents and their infants to capture soothing techniques and a range of infant and parent emotions. In the course of filming we have met a wonderful variety of parents - and grandparents - and talked with them about what worked for them to help their babies and themselves during times of stress. The chapter entitled "How to Soothe a Crying Baby" is almost completed and Vida's producer is editing the other chapters.

The completed DVD will: explain normal infant crying, define colic, show many types of safe soothing techniques for crying babies, give parents tips on how to calm themselves, and list resources parents can use in times of stress. A trailer of this DVD will be shown to parents while in the hospital and parents will given the full length DVD and an accompanying informational booklet. The booklet is underway and will be shown to new parents to elicit their feedback before it is finalized.

The research team is preparing to begin the evaluation this spring. We will interview over 300 first-time parents, with an emphasis on fathers, several times over their infants' first months. We hope to demonstrate that the parents who received our DVD are more knowledgeable about safe ways to soothe a crying baby and themselves than those parents who receive the information that is currently distributed at Massachusetts and Rhode Island birthing facilities.

For more information, please contact Brittany Peats at Brittant.Peats@vida-health.com or visit www.vida-health.com/research

Vida Health Communications, Inc. is dedicated to improving the health of women, children and families through the production of evidence-based educational media for caregivers and patients. Vida's programs integrate and 'translate' the latest scientific knowledge and advances in health-care with consistently innovative approaches to visual and interactive media. Much of Vida's research and program development is done with support from the National Institutes of Health. Vida has received well over 100 awards for its programs.

For more information please visit: www.vida-health.com


Greetings Valued Customer,
Vida's Spring Health Update In This Issue: A Message from Chris Spence, Director of E-Learning Technology Introducing Your Green Guide to Pregnancy! Now Available on DVD. Managing Environmental Risks in Pregnancy Workshops All Babies Cry Update! Project Progress Report Forward this message to a friend Your Green Guide to Pregnancy Trailer on YouTube! Click here Vida Selected to Participate in National Institutes of Health Commercialization Assistance Program (CAP) The Commercialization Assistance Program (CAP), sponsored by the National Institutes of Health is designed to assist NIH SBIR Phase II award winners transition their SBIR-developed technologies into the marketplace. Vida is one of about 80 companies selected to participate in the program. How to Calm a Crying Baby: Share your funny/inventive calming a crying baby stories! Your story will help Vida to craft tips for our All Babies Cry Intervention. To share your story or get some great "calming" tips visit: www.cryingbabystories.com Online Childbirth Education Vida is excited about the number of interested parties requesting information on the pending release of Vida's Online Childbirth Education suite. To receive more information or to be added to our waiting list sign up here or contact Aimee Arvan at Aimee.Arvan@vida-health.com Project Progress Report Workplace Violence Training for Nurses: Staff at Vida are creating a web-based course with video case studies to help nurses understand, assess, respond to -- and prevent -- physical and emotional violence in the workplace. Scripting for the first of 5 modules is currently in development. Vida has recently hired a project manager to oversee the project development. After School Gets Moving: Our partnership with Playworks, a nationally recognized nonprofit organization that supports learning by providing safe, healthy physical activity to schools is well underway. After visits to Boston public schools, Vida is finalizing the site selection for filming. Vida has also hired a new project manager to actively oversee script development and the creation of the game compendium. For information on all current projects, please contact Aimee Arvan at Aimee.Arvan@vida-health.com or visit www.vida-health.com/research Keep up with the latest Vida News! Follow Vida on twitter @VidaHealth Subscribe to Vida's YouTube Channel! Become a Vida fan on facebook! Subscribe to Vida's Childbirth Media Center on YouTube! Subscribe for Vida Blog Updates!	Director of E-Learning Technology It's been an eventful "rookie season" for me here at Vida Health Communications. I came on board in early October to orchestrate the development of an interactive courseware platform and to oversee the integration of e-learning technologies with Vida's curricular materials. The primary focus of these efforts so far has been construction of the "Vida Course Player": a lightweight, scalable web application that delivers a variety of engaging, media-rich learning opportunities to our clients and customers. We have founded our work on the premise that the internet is an increasingly necessary medium for teaching and learning in the 21st century. For this reason, we have invested a considerable amount of time and effort to ensure that Vida's digital course offerings take advantage of the medium's many affordances and are thus delivered in an accessible, responsive format. This is, of course, no small feat. So I have spent the better part of the last three months hunkered down in my new "corner office" (though some might call it "an office in a corner") wearing out the keys on my beloved Macbook Pro to bring this exciting vision to life. Before arriving at Vida, I devoted most of my professional life to the study and practice of education. Upon graduating from Williams College in the spring of 2000, I accepted a position in the Massachusetts public schools and spent the following seven years teaching science and coaching football at a suburban high school. It was during this time that I first discovered an interest in software development as I began creating small applications to support student learning in my classroom. Inspired by the success of these endeavors, I left the public schools in the fall of 2007 to pursue my masters degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education [HGSE]. I enrolled in the Technology, Innovation, and Education program wherein I enjoyed many wonderful opportunities to extend my programming skills and understanding of educational technology. After graduation, I co-founded a small educational media company that services the e-learning industry in various parts of the country. While my work at Vida and elsewhere keeps me rather busy, I still manage to find time once a week to revisit the classroom. I currently serve as teaching fellow and lab instructor for two courses at HGSE: Educational Software Design and Universal Design for Learning. For more information, please contact Aimee Arvan at Aimee.Arvan@vida-health.com *Introducing Your Green Guide to Pregnancy* - Now Available on DVD!** Vida is happy to announce the release ofYour Green Guide to Pregnancy: Creating a Healthier Prenatal Environment! This program was produced with a small business innovative research grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health & Safety (R43ES014495). It aims to provide pregnant women with practical steps to achieve a health and environmentally safe pregnancy. Chapters Include: Breathe-Smoke Free Air Stay Beautiful, Sensibly Avoid Chemicals at Home Eat Healthy Food Prepared Safely Dr. Charles Lockwood, Chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology Yale-New Haven Hospital, says Your Green Guide to Pregnancy is "Terrific... an important resource for all pregnant women!" This program empowers women to make informed and healthy choices throughout their pregnancy. The DVD contains the program in both English and Spanish.Your Green Guide to Pregnancy is available on Amazon.com. This month Vida will be releasing the professional version, Your Green Guide to Pregnancy: Practical Strategies for Reducing Environmental Risk, a toolkit to help prenatal healthcare providers and educators provide anticipatory guidance around this often confusing issue. The professional edition of this program includes a professional resources CD-ROM that contains a library of educational resources including a detailed Workshop Leader's Guide, flyers, evaluation forms, a computer slide show presentation and full color printable handouts. All materials for distribution to workshop participants are in English and Spanish. If you are interested in learning more about the release of the professional version of this program, please click here or contact Aimee Arvan at Aimee.Arvan@vida-health.com *Vida's Managing Environmental Risks in Pregnancy* Workshops** Vida is currently in the midst of evaluating our newest product Your Green Guide to Pregnancy. Through a study funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Vida is testing the effectiveness of a workshop and DVD. Led by a bi-lingual childbirth educator, this media-based workshop aims to teach pregnant women how to protect their fetus from risks in the environment. While the majority of the women attending the workshops will be English speakers, approximately 20% of the women will attend the workshop in Spanish. The Massachusetts Women, Infants and Children program (WIC) has provided Vida with locations to hold these workshops and assisted Vida in recruiting participants into our study as well. With the help of the nutrition staff at WIC locations in Cambridge, Dorchester, Lawrence, Lowell and Roxbury, 46 women have attended Vida's workshops so far and 41 women are enrolled for upcoming workshops. With data from the three interviews each participant receives, Vida hopes to find that this program has not only made a difference for the women in this study, but will also continue to be a resource helping to contribute to healthier pregnancies for years to come. For more information, please contact Betsy Peixotto at Betsy.Peixotto@vida-health.com or visit www.vida-health.com/research All Babies Cry Update Vida has received Phase II funding for the All Babies Cry project following the submission of our progress report in January. Vida's production team continues to film parents and their infants to capture soothing techniques and a range of infant and parent emotions. In the course of filming we have met a wonderful variety of parents - and grandparents - and talked with them about what worked for them to help their babies and themselves during times of stress. The chapter entitled "How to Soothe a Crying Baby" is almost completed and Vida's producer is editing the other chapters. The completed DVD will: explain normal infant crying, define colic, show many types of safe soothing techniques for crying babies, give parents tips on how to calm themselves, and list resources parents can use in times of stress. A trailer of this DVD will be shown to parents while in the hospital and parents will given the full length DVD and an accompanying informational booklet. The booklet is underway and will be shown to new parents to elicit their feedback before it is finalized. The research team is preparing to begin the evaluation this spring. We will interview over 300 first-time parents, with an emphasis on fathers, several times over their infants' first months. We hope to demonstrate that the parents who received our DVD are more knowledgeable about safe ways to soothe a crying baby and themselves than those parents who receive the information that is currently distributed at Massachusetts and Rhode Island birthing facilities. For more information, please contact Brittany Peats at Brittant.Peats@vida-health.com or visit www.vida-health.com/research Vida Health Communications, Inc. is dedicated to improving the health of women, children and families through the production of evidence-based educational media for caregivers and patients. Vida's programs integrate and 'translate' the latest scientific knowledge and advances in health-care with consistently innovative approaches to visual and interactive media. Much of Vida's research and program development is done with support from the National Institutes of Health. Vida has received well over 100 awards for its programs.
For more information please visit: www.vida-health.com