In the Texas Panhandle, nurses make home visits to new moms in need
AMARILLO — Brianna Tilson shuffled through the duffel bag in her trunk, taking a mental inventory of what she needed for her next appointment. She paused, then the nurse tossed in a big pack of diapers before slinging the heavy bag over her shoulder and going up the stairs to Sedraya Kemp’s apartment.
Kemp, 21, was frustrated. Her 21-month-old old son was finally napping after a rough night with an ear infection. Without a car, Kemp had to wait all morning for her son’s father to drop off the medicine.
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Tilson is part of the Nurse-Family Partnership, a national program that sends nurses to meet first-time moms at their homes and is managed in part by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Early Intervention division. The Amarillo office is one of 23 local partners in Texas, with most other offices in major metro areas including Houston, Dallas and Austin. The nurses make home visits during their pregnancy and after to see how the mom and baby are doing, and to guide them to healthy lifestyles. Along the course of the program, which can be nearly three years depending on when the mom starts, the nurse and mom often form strong bonds.
Fertility rates are on the rise in Texas, but health care access is not. Amarillo is the most populous city in the Panhandle, and even its residents struggle with the access issues common in Texas, all of which can leave women vulnerable during their pregnancy or after. This includes a dearth of hospitals, tight budgets, and workforce shortages.
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This article is long, full of sadness, and great pictures. Four paragraphs aren’t enough.
This is what raising children is like in Texas J.D., Dan, Greg and the rest of you arrogant aholes.
You are so concerned with what you call the “unborn” while women and children live in abject poverty. You won’t expand Medicaid, you won’t expand food stamps, WIC and other programs like this to actually help living babies, toddlers and their mothers.
You actually want to do away with Head Start. You want “welfare queens” to get off their duffs and go to work and, yes, you refuse to fund free childcare, and summer meals for school aged kids.
Nope. We gonna spend $20 BILLION dollars to build a wall 1,954 miles long.
Jesus wept!