our nonprofit mission
PartnerPepTalk is here to normalize preconception conversations and reimagine pre-pregnancy health as a shared responsibility: one that includes not just women and girls, but all future fathers and partners.
We provide conversation-starting tools and health literacy resources that spark open, necessary discussions about reproductive health. By expanding the focus to include sperm health, partner readiness, and mutual well-being, we help individuals and couples communicate more deeply to make confident, informed choices for their futures.
No two PartnerPepTalks are the same, and they’re not one-and-done. These conversations evolve over time. They grow with you, shifting as relationships deepen, plans take shape, or life throws you something new.
Also, PartnerPepTalks are important for people delaying or avoiding parenthood too—not only to prevent unintended pregnancy or paternity but to maintain lifelong reproductive vitality and sexual wellness.
Who's Our Audience?
- Couples, individuals, and sperm/egg donors before or between pregnancy/paternity — the primary audience.
- Parents, mentors, and educators of the next generation — support early, ongoing engagement.
- Healthcare professionals (e.g., primary care, dentists, pharmacists, mental health specialists, etc.) — reinforce and guide conversations.
- Social service, and community-based professionals — support, advocate for, and connect people to care and resources .
- Policy influencers; insurance coverage decision-makers — shape access, coverage, and scale.
- Journalists and media — expand accurate public understanding.
- Philanthropists and funders of evidence-based research — enable innovation, evaluation, and broader dissemination of this work.
Have you heard of sperm developmental timelines – a 90-day process – which may influence pregnancy outcomes and generational health?
Given that 50% of pregnancies occur unexpectedly, without the chance to mitigate preventable risks, the question arises, “What can be done to optimize the health of intimate partners before conception, and are there particularly high-impact windows of opportunity?”
The Case
Call to Action
Women’s pre-pregnancy health is accepted as central to optimizing the odds for pregnancy safety and maternal child health (MCH) outcomes. Meanwhile, the importance of men’s preconception health is less familiar to the general public, healthcare providers, and insurers, despite being known to help – or harm – pregnancy and birth outcomes. Could traditional preconception health campaigns be expanded to include intimate partners, each with their own evidence-based supports?
Better Odds
The mission of the Preconception Education Partnership (PEP) is to elevate the role of future fathers and sperm health (including donors) while simultaneously centering the well-being of people who could become pregnant. Coalition-building could make this even stronger.
Global Impact
The global impact of prioritizing both partners’ reproductive healthcare more than doubles, since the pool of prospective fathers is always larger than prospective mothers. Vast economic benefits result from equitable preventive care before first impregnations or pregnancies, especially if high-risk unplanned pregnancies decrease.
Familiarity Breeds Confidence
PEP’s most innovative health literacy resource under development, the PartnerPepTalk, advocates for biological, psychological, and social supports for preconception readiness. The PartnerPepTalk online hub will be a model for communication that is first initiated between pediatricians and pre-adolescent patients and is repeated annually. The team approach to healthcare is introduced and reinforced at every touchpoint. The PartnerPepTalk is an “ice-breaker” to spark self-reflection on one’s reproductive life plan, promote conversations with one’s intimate partner(s), seek baseline healthcare (or optimize care of chronic medical conditions), and explore community support for food insecurity, alcohol and/or substance use disorders, smoking cessation, mental health, intimate partner violence, and other high-impact wrap-around services. LGBTQ+ or couples impacted by infertility or prior loss will find specially tailored PartnerPepTalk ice-breakers and vetted referral links.
Framework and Funding
Maternal-child health (MCH) crises are only partially explained by acute prenatal (pregnancy) and postpartum circumstances. To minimize biased conclusions, PEP advocates for approximately 25% of MCH attention to generational epigenetic forces that exist months, years, and generations before impregnation/conception, with the remaining 50% and 25% scrutiny on pregnancy and postpartum factors. Something as simple as this soft guideline, “25% preconception: 50% prenatal: 25% postpartum subject matter,” better explains inequities in maternal and infant mortality and complication rates. Journalists, researchers, policy influencers, educators, and clinicians can all help normalize addressing the full arch of pregnancy and birth outcome stories. Funding is needed for more research, civil discourse, and reporting on MCH crises that fully frame the issue.
Fresh Opportunities
Deliverables include PartnerPepTalk social media campaigns, catchy posters and brochures, and newer innovations created for and by tomorrow’s generation of parents from Gen Y, Z, and Alpha. PEP welcomes opportunities to co-develop and co-brand deliverables with mission-aligned partners.
Reproductive Health Equity
To complement the re-shaping of healthcare equity for future generations, we prioritize representation of historically marginalized populations who bear the disproportionate burden of health disparities.
Get Started
This video shares the foundational story of our nonprofit and early goals. While our logo has evolved, our mission continues to grow in scope and impact.