Over the weekend, at least three nurses from Sitka’s Labor and Delivery Unit at Mount Edgecumbe Medical Center will be in Haines to host a community baby shower.
The idea is to get face time with local mothers, pregnant people and their communities to let them know what kind of resources are available – particularly because most expectant parents in Southeast Alaska must travel to other communities to give birth.
Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium Labor and Delivery Nurse Manager Mandy Votaw said she talks to a lot of expectant parents when they arrive to deliver in Sitka.
“The thing I hear the most is that they don’t know what’s available,” she said. “They don’t know the importance of seeing a dietician if you have diabetes. Just because a doctor tells them something, doesn’t mean people believe it. These communities don’t have the same trust.”
So, Votaw said, her team is hoping to build trust one community visit at a time, starting in Haines.
“It’s really important for us to get into these communities so there is trust,” she said. “Lots of patients don’t get prenatal care and I think there’s some mistrust because of SEARHC itself. A lot of people still think SEARHC is just for tribal families or native families. So we just really want everybody to know that this is for everybody.”
This will be Votaw’s first time hosting this kind of community event.
“My vision of it is to be kind of fun, like a baby shower,” she said. “It’s for the whole family, so that’s important because there’s education and stuff for everybody – kids, dads, partners.”
They plan to have tables of educational materials, a labor and delivery nurse doing a labor presentation, and an area for newborn care and some games.
“[There will be a] diaper derby race for the babies if they’re interested and then something like a daddy diapering, dressing, swaddling thing and they get a little prize with it,” Votaw said.
A big part of the day is specifically tailored for pregnant or postpartum women who come to the shower. Votaw said they’ll get a diaper bag and something to put in it at every booth they visit.
There will also be food available.
The program comes at a time when SEARHC was awarded two grants to help improve maternal and child health in Southeast Alaska. Data shows the state’s outcomes can be dismal.
Alaska’s pregnancy-associated mortality rate – that is all deaths that occur while the mother is pregnant or within one year after the end of the pregnancy – has been on the rise for years. The rates of pregnancy-associated deaths from 2012-2021 increased by 184% in rural areas with just under half of those deaths – 44% linked to barriers to healthcare access.
The baby shower is specifically part of one of the National Institutes of Health’s Build UP Trust Challenge which helps SEARHC host culturally specific community baby showers and health resource fairs. She said the initial grant supports the visit to Haines, then the team will travel to Washington D.C. in 2025 to report on how the year went. If it goes well, they could get a grant to travel to five communities next year.
Votaw said she wanted to start the program in Haines because when she has traveled to the community to do training in the past, it felt isolated.
“We don’t have a lot of people come from Haines to Sitka to deliver, but when we do have them come here, it’s [clear that some things] are missing,” she said. “I felt in my heart that this was the community that needed us first.”
The Community Baby Shower will be held at the Chilkat Center on Saturday, Sept. 21, from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. There will also be a prenatal class open to all from 5-7 p.m.