Help for newly pregnant mothers?

Question

There is a "women's crisis center" I donate to, they offer free pregnancy tests.. Anyway It gets their foot in the door (in a good way) with newly (confused) pregnany women. They TRULEY let them know their options including ALL forms of assistance.

They give the expectant mothers baby items when they go to parenting classes and when the baby is born they get a crib, carseat and tons of loving support to parent their babies. We donate baby items to this group, if anyone is interested in helping just let me know i'll give you the address.

do you think it's these kinds of places that should be doing the b-parent counceling. They show support every way possible to help them with baby things if they chose to parent and councel them should they chose to place or abort. These workers are all educated and VOLUNTEER! Their emphasis is on supporting women who make their OWN decision what ever it may be.

I think it's a start and we need more like it.

Answer 1

They have a place like that in AZ.  I know a girl who did that.  She did all the baby classes and, parenting classes and, got tons of things to help her out.  They are there to support you in every way.  I think it is a wonderful program for girls and woman who find themselves in the family way.  They helped her get w.i.c and state help.  She had a very healthy baby girl and it wasn't so hard on her cause yes, she was 17 and alone.......

Answer 2

I would want the agency to equally support parenting, adoption and abortion.  I do not agree that abortion is more of an option before adoption.  A good adoption agency will offer post adoption counseling.  I think pregnant women need all the information they can get.   I've seen my fair share of messed up kids from single parent families.  It is not always the right option to keep the child!

Answer 3

My family supports a service for families in need and expectant parents.  A lot of the mothers that they support come from abusive homes themselves.  Being young and poor does not mean that parents do not love their children.  They desperately want to care for their children and for them to have a better future.  The service provides diapers, formula, medical care, housing, parenting education, GED, and job training.  Adoption is extremely rare as as abortion.  The focus is family support.

Before we gave them a penny I interviewed the director and a counselor to be sure that they were not leaning toward adoption in any way and determined that they were not.  One big thing that I watch out for is if they use the "b-parent" term to refer to expectant parents.  That is a BIG red flag for me.

"B-parent" is a term used for a man or woman who has terminated his/her parental rights.  So yes, if a b-parent comes to the center grieving for their lost child, I hope that a counselor would be available to console him/her.  If a crisis center counselor calls an expectant parent a "B-parent" just because the expectant parent has doubts about his/her ability to parent, I would advise the expectant parent to find another support service.  I would be very suspicious that the counselor is pushing adoption and is trying to label the parent for surrender by using the adoption world term "b-parent".  Using the "B-parent" term before the parents has signed final papers is a sign that the service might be coercive and and playing sheep in wolves clothing.  The counselor may have ulterior motives, usually meaning kickbacks from a lawyer or adoption agency.  The counselor will befriend the vulnerable young parents, and then try to lure them into adoption.

Answer 4

I think it's fantastic that these neutral, unbiased places exist and, to be honest, I think they are too few and far between.  God bless those volunteers

Too often there is a clear conflict of interest when expectant mothers are 'counselled' by adoption agencies

How can Adoption Agency counselling ever be anything other than biased and coercive? - they have customers waiting in the wings and want that baby; when would they ever counsel the mother to parent?  Adoption Agencies 'counselling' women is like letting the Fox counsel the Hen - y'know?

Answer 5

There is problems with CPC's.  I had a friend who was very married and pregnant.  She was very excited about being pregnant.  She needed to get a confirmation test for Medicaid.  These so called volunteers asked her three times to give her child up for adoption in FRONT of her husband and two year old son.  They also did it at another center with a single friend of mine, only not as bad. This young woman wanted to be a mother.  Adoption nor abortion was never an option.  

I hope that there are CPC's that are actually giving information on helping women.  From what I have seen, no they don't.

Answer 6

It sounds good, assuming they really are giving information and being supportive to women who choose to abort (so many of these crisis pregnancy places do not). I think it is okay to give a long list of adoption agencies also, or even a short list if there are good OPEN adoption agencies in your area that really support the rights of first mothers.

I am an adoptive mom myself, and I read blogs late into the night from first mothers (birth mothers) and adult adoptees. Many of them have a lot of issues and some of them are painful. Of course you wouldn't blog about it if you didn't have issues. But I think it is important to support women in letting them know that parenting their child can be a good option, and it sounds like this organization does this, so assuming they do empower the women to make their own decisions, it really does sound like a good group.