Today is the first class of your new four class set. We will begin class with a causal conversation. We have one piece of material today, an audio story with a transcript. I want you to take the time to listen. You can listen with or without the transcript.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Remember those first few days after a new baby comes home? Lots of joy - right? - but also questions, anxiety, and sometimes depression. Often, the only way to get help is to head to the pediatrician's office. A new program in Oregon is trying to change that. It's offering young families no-cost visits from a trained nurse at home. NPR's Cory Turner has that story from central Oregon.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY COOING)
BARB IBRAHIM: Her lungs sound good. You're talking a little bit, aren't you? Can I take your temperature?
CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Nurse Barb Ibrahim is in the kitchen of Matt and Amber Luman's house in Jefferson County, Ore., holding their baby daughter, Esserley.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY COOING)
IBRAHIM: Well, Esserley, shall we get you weighed and see how big you are?
AMBER LUMAN: Yeah, let me get her out of her...
IBRAHIM: Yeah.
A LUMAN: ...Little onesie.
TURNER: Barb carries a big bag like Mary Poppins, and in it is a baby scale.
A LUMAN: Here we go, Esserley.
IBRAHIM: Yeah, so 10, eight.
TURNER: Esserley is Amber and Matt's first and has strawberry blonde hair, just like her mom. Amber says Esserley's been doing well, except for a little trouble feeding, with lots of gas.
A LUMAN: So she...
IBRAHIM: OK.
A LUMAN: ...Clicks at the breasts in the bottle.
IBRAHIM: Yes.
A LUMAN: So it lets a little bit of air in.
IBRAHIM: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY COOING)
A LUMAN: Yeah.
IBRAHIM: There we go.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY BURPING)
A LUMAN: Oh.
(LAUGHTER)
TURNER: That was Esserley letting out a little burp just to prove her mom's point.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY COOING)
TURNER: On a previous visit, Barb showed Amber a few different ways to hold the baby during breastfeeding to help minimize that gas.
A LUMAN: And you were telling me about the football hold.
IBRAHIM: The football hold, yeah.
A LUMAN: Yeah.
IBRAHIM: Yeah. Have you tried that?
A LUMAN: I tried it. I couldn't get it (laughter).
TURNER: So Barb and Amber worked on the football hold again.
A LUMAN: Thank you so much for coming today (laughter).
IBRAHIM: Yes. You're welcome.
TURNER: The idea behind this program called Family Connects is to offer any family in Oregon one to three home visits from a trained nurse like Barb within their baby's first few weeks of life, with no cost to families. The program was developed in Durham, N.C., and research from its smaller rollout there found the program was associated with a handful of big benefits, including a drop in the number of trips new parents were making to the emergency room. You see, Family Connects is built on this idea that helping parents helps babies.
ELIZABETH STEINER: Babies are hard, man. (Laughter) Babies are just hard. So I was very intrigued by this idea.
TURNER: Elizabeth Steiner is a family physician in Portland, Ore. She didn't create Family Connects, but she may be the biggest reason it's coming to Oregon because in addition to being a doctor, she's also a state senator and a mom. For her, helping support young parents wasn't just good policy. It was personal, beginning with the birth of her own daughter.
STEINER: Two days after the baby was born, I developed horrible postpartum anxiety and depression. I didn't sleep for weeks.
TURNER: Around one in seven new mothers in the U.S. report postpartum depression. Senator Steiner says she could have used the kind of support a Family Connects nurse can provide. In fact, a study of Family Connects in Durham found mothers in the program were 30% less likely to experience possible postpartum depression or anxiety.
STEINER: Nobody should have to go through that, Cory. And having a trained nurse come into my home when my baby was two weeks old and say, oh, OK, let's get you some help here would have been transformative.
TURNER: Steiner says her story shows why she wanted Family Connects to be universally available for every family that wants help, whether it's for their first baby or their fifth, because every baby can be challenging, even for a trained doctor.
The program also helps parents manage another big stressor - colic, or what Family Connects calls purple crying. It's a relentless kind of crying that sometimes can't be soothed. It's perfectly normal but can lead some parents in desperation to shake their babies, which can be incredibly dangerous. In the car, nurse Barb told me she spends a lot of time preparing parents for purple crying.
IBRAHIM: We talk through that and, you know, like, recommend putting the baby in a safe place like their bassinet, and then, you know, stepping outside for a couple deep breaths is kind of what I usually recommend, I think, mainly 'cause that worked for me (laughter).
TURNER: Barb thinks this extra preparation is one of the reasons that early study of Family Connects in Durham also found a big drop in Child Protective Services investigations into parents for suspected abuse or neglect of their child.
There's also the connects part of Family Connects. If a family is struggling with housing or food insecurity or addiction, the nurse will connect them with local groups and agencies that can help. There's also smaller stuff like a free book program, which Barb mentions on her visit with Amber and Matt Luman.
IBRAHIM: OK, so that's the Dolly Parton book program, and they will send her a book monthly.
A LUMAN: Oh, wow.
IBRAHIM: Yeah.
A LUMAN: That's awesome.
TURNER: Barb also hands Amber a flyer.
IBRAHIM: It's a support group...
A LUMAN: Oh, nice.
IBRAHIM: ...For after birth.
A LUMAN: OK.
IBRAHIM: So...
A LUMAN: Tuesday, 2 to 3.
TURNER: While research from Durham, where the program began, suggests a real return on investment, rolling out Family Connects in Oregon has been a struggle. The pandemic got in the way. The plan was to require insurance companies to pay for these nurse visits, but that's also taken some time. And then there's the cost. Senator Steiner says they were expecting these visits to cost between $400 and $500 per family.
STEINER: Turns out it's probably more like $1,300, at least here in Oregon, and that was a problem.
TURNER: Part of the difference is the unprecedented challenge of offering the service to anyone who wants it statewide.
STEINER: Oregon - we have a lot of places where people live many, many miles apart. And there's more of a nursing shortage here, so we had to pay higher wages to get nurses who were interested in doing this. There were a whole host of reasons.
TURNER: In spite of all this, Steiner believes the lifetime benefits of Family Connects still outweigh the costs.
IBRAHIM: Could I take your blood pressure with this little wrist cuff? OK.
TURNER: Back at the Lumans' house, Barb checks mom Amber's blood pressure and asks how she's feeling these days.
A LUMAN: Yeah.
IBRAHIM: Yeah.
A LUMAN: A little tired sometimes, you know?
IBRAHIM: Yeah.
A LUMAN: But I think it's normal.
IBRAHIM: Yeah.
TURNER: Finally, after about an hour, Barb has one more surprise in that Mary Poppins bag of hers.
IBRAHIM: And I brought you guys a gift.
A LUMAN: Ooh.
MATT LUMAN: Ooh.
A LUMAN: Thank you.
IBRAHIM: This is for...
A LUMAN: That's awesome.
IBRAHIM: ...Ten to 18 pounds, so it'll fit her now, which is nice.
A LUMAN: Oh.
TURNER: It's a sleep sack to make the nights just a little easier for Esserley and for her parents.