To reduce and prevent infant mortality, neglect and abuse, nurses are going into the homes to work with mothers, babies and their families to make sure the infants get the healthiest start in life.
The special TLC for the babies comes from the Nurses for Newborns Foundation of St. Louis. Missouri Congressman Russ Carnahan recently announced $463,000 in federal funds for its programs.
“It is essential to support mothers, children and families by providing them with the resources they need to succeed,” Carnahan said. “This funding will have a direct and positive impact on the lives of countless families in my district.”
“The Foundation fulfills its mission by providing nurse home visits to clients most at- risk of child abuse and neglect or infant mortality,” Sharon Rohrbach, founder and CEO, said.
Nurses working with the foundation have specialties in public health, pediatric and neonatal intensive care.
Six programs are used to carry out its mission for safe and healthy babies:
Bright Futures – for pregnant or parenting women in poverty;
Bridge to the Future – for babies who are discharged from a neonatal intensive care unit or who are premature, drug exposed or have congenital defects;
Safe Beginnings – for mentally or physically challenged pregnant or parenting women;
Teen Parent – for pregnant or parenting teens;
Healthy Hearts & Homes – serves families through a partnership the Healthy Marriage Coalition and the Fatherhood Initiative; and
Healthy Start – serves at-risk pregnant women in three zip codes in St. Louis city and county.
In St. Louis, the Healthy Start program operates out of New Northside Baptist Church on Goodfellow Blvd.
“We have prenatal and postnatal classes there. We try to target first trimester moms to get them into health care. Once we get them into service, we follow them through the entire pregnancy and post-delivery through until the child is 2 years of age,” said Gwen Stubblefield, nurse coordinator for Nurses for Newborns. “The zip codes we are targeting are 63113, 63120 and 63136 in St. Louis City and St. Louis County.”
Rohrbach said clients are referred from hospitals, the Division of Family Services, homeless shelters, Medicaid, HMOs and through self-referrals.
While based in St. Louis, the foundation serves 29 counties across Missouri. Among participants in 2006, the program prevented 100 percent of child abuse and neglect, eliminated 99 percent of preventable hospitalizations and prevented 94 percent of inappropriate emergency room visits.
Stubblefield said once trust and rapport is established, Healthy Start nurses can make a difference in their lives. For example, she said sometimes it is a matter of unlearning practices that mothers and families take for granted are okay, like snuggling with your baby for a little shut-eye.
“The ‘no-no’ is parents should not sleep with the babies because of the possibility of infant death. The babies can get wedged under the mom’s bodies or the pillows. Frequently, there are a number of people in the same bed – the mother and several children,” Stubblefield explained. “It’s probably easier; they don’t want to get up during the night. There are all kinds of reasons – it’s a history – ‘this is how we did it – and it never happened to me.’
“What we do – we try to get them cribs. We bring it, but we can’t be there 24 hours. So you don’t just attack them, we say ‘I know we all did it, but we shouldn’t have to.’ And the law – they are beginning to file charges.”
Sleeping with infants is not the only action that can cause peril for a child.
“A lot of them don’t know that hollering and screaming at their child is child abuse – it’s emotional and verbal abuse,” Stubblefield said. “A lot of times the parent doesn’t even know its considered abuse. Calling the kids names – they are just so used to doing it.”
Young pregnant teenagers and women over 35 are considered high-risk. If they are overweight, a history of diabetes or high blood pressure, it is also considered a high-risk pregnancy.
During typical home visits, Healthy Start nurses check blood pressure and other vital signs of expectant mothers and speak with them about nutrition and keeping prenatal doctor appointments. They also screen for depression.
With new moms, nurses check the weight, health and development of the baby and screen the moms for postpartum depression – a questionnaire that made the difference in Genetta Lane’s experience with her new baby.
“I knew I was having feelings – these strange feelings about my baby – not wanting to hold her and not wanting to be around her. I got help – counseling, and my family worked with me closely. I’m over it now, and I have people I can talk to,” said Genetta Lane, a former Healthy Start client. “In our culture, postpartum depression is just something that I thought ‘we’ didn’t get. I didn’t know a lot about it – the baby blues – I thought it was something that really didn’t exist. I’m kind of glad I actually had it because I wouldn’t have believed it existed if I didn’t.”
Lane learned the steps she could take to control and get over her depression.
“They used to tell me to just sit down and read with her, spend time with her – taking a walk with her and learning to give myself time away from the baby as well. Take five minutes for myself. They told me to rest when the baby was resting so when she was alert, I could be alert,” Lane said.
In a few months, Lane said she was back to herself. Her daughter is now 17 months old.
Stubblefield was Lane’s Healthy Start outreach nurse. After getting the help needed to overcome postpartum depression, Lane began working with Healthy Start as an outreach mother to assist other women, babies and families, like the North St. Louis County family of Alicia Hubbard.
The 34-year-old mother to 1-year-old Shekinah and 2-month-old Hezekiah Thomas is very pleased with the support and assistance her family receives from Stubblefield, her outreach nurse and Lane, her outreach mother.
“It taught me to be a better mother. It’s helped me and my children on a communication level,” Hubbard said.
Her children’s father, 28-year-old Terrell Thomas, agrees.
“I learned what I can do to help bond with my children even more,” Thomas said.
“I’ve been with Alicia since Shekinah was a little baby. I got her and Terrell into the Healthy Marriage Program through the Fathers Support Center. I helped her set up doctors appointments and making sure the baby got immunizations,” Lane said. “They have a better relationship with their children and they communicate better as well. Their family as a whole has just grown.”
“The good thing about the program is the outreach moms. They confide in them a lot when they may not confide in the outreach nurse,” Stubblefield explained.
Outreach moms visit infants and families in between the nurse visits for life skills training, meal preparation and time management.
“Genetta will stop what she is doing to help me if I have a problem,” Lane said. “She is very loving. It’s another family to me.”
For more information about the Healthy Start Program or the Nurses for Newborns Foundation of St. Louis, visit www.nfnf.org or call (314) 544-3433 or 1-800-45BIRTH.