These two programs are helping pregnant women and new moms in Pittsburgh

In photo above, Juanita Conner (left) watches her granddaughter Luna Mosley with her daughter Charvon Conner. Photo by Clare Sheedy/PublicSource.

Good news for pregnant women and new moms in the Pittsburgh area: Two local programs are tackling some of the toughest challenges women face during and right after pregnancy. The nonprofit media outlet PublicSource has two recent stories on these programs, and we wanted to make sure Kidsburgh readers knew about them:

First, check out this story by Amy Whipple about Healthy Start’s Moving Beyond Depression program, which aims to treat prenatal and postpartum depression, especially for Black parents: The most common pregnancy complication? A mental health disorder. A Pittsburgh program aims to address it.

“According to the Maternal Mental Health Leadership Alliance, a national nonprofit that advocates for changes to policy and health equity, mental health disorders are the most common complications of pregnancy and childbirth – affecting one in five birthing people,” Whipple writes. “For Black birthing people, that number almost doubles to nearly 40%. They attribute the disparity to risk factors such as systemic racism, adverse childhood experiences and lack of representation in the medical system.”

Healthy Start’s Moving Beyond Depression program is using evidence-based in-home cognitive behavioral therapy to treat birthing parents struggling with these issues. To learn more about Healthy Start’s Moving Beyond Depression program, read the full story here.

The second PublicSource story we wanted to share is about The Women’s Law Project, which saw a demand for counseling, intervention and legal help in Philadelphia, and concluded that Pittsburghers also need help in addressing practices that may violate anti-discrimination laws.

In this recent story, Emily Sauchelli wrote that “in hopes of improving understanding of the legal landscape for new parents, the Women’s Law Project is bringing the WLP Navigator intervention program, launched in Philadelphia, to Western Pennsylvania.”

WLP is expanding the program in hopes of “getting to women, pregnant people and lactating people before that discrimination occurs,” said Ena Lebel, a contract staff attorney with WLP. “When they’re going back to work or when they’re determining how they want to handle their leave or how they want to ask for an accommodation, having the resources to talk that over so that they can feel empowered is critical.”

To learn more, read the full story here: They cut your hours because you’re expecting? A program to curb pregnancy and lactation discrimination expands to Pittsburgh.

PublicSource, a news partner of Kidsburgh.org, is a nonprofit media organization delivering local journalism at publicsource.org. You can sign up for their newsletters at publicsource.org/newsletters.