Two months ago in a Freeport hospital, Tashunda Owens was about to welcome her third daughter into the world.
“This is my third C section," she said, "and it was very traumatic. All of my doctors are in Swedes (SwedishAmerican Hospital). I had to deliver in Freeport. I was really, really scared and I was by myself.”
In that moment, though, some of the first people there to help were from the Stephenson County Health Department’s Universal Newborn Support System.
“Even after she was born and I was still in the hospital," she said, "they were reaching out to me and seeing if I needed anything, and how I was doing, mentally, physically, how the baby was doing."
And once Owens and her baby got home, a trained nurse visited her house to help.
“We were very unprepared when she came. She was born three weeks early," said Owens. "So, this program has helped us a lot as far as baby stuff and [it’s] not even just the mental support for the mom. We've gotten food and clothes and all of the support and milestones that we didn't know she was supposed to be hitting and stuff like that.”
Dana Foltz says that’s exactly how the universal newborn support system is supposed to work. She’s with the Stephenson County Health Department, which has been running the program since it started in 2018.
Their team of nurses visits families within three weeks of the birth. They help moms with things like breastfeeding and C-section healing, and they’re also there to answer any questions and connect them with additional services.
“We kind of fill the gap," said Foltz, "between the time that they leave the hospital and the time they get to their physicians."
Those additional services could be childcare or early intervention therapy. Owens says they helped her reach a range of different needs from babysitting to baby clothes.
“Food pantries, even," she said. "Our house is very old, and they've helped us with lead."
The key word in Universal Newborn Support is "universal." In Stephenson County, every single family has access to this. There aren’t many other communities in Illinois that offer universal home visiting support. But there’s a plan to bring it to Rockford and Winnebago County soon.
Emily Klonicki is the executive director of Alignment Rockford — which is helping lead the community initiative along with groups like Brightpoint & the Winnebago County Health Department. She says Winnebago County could particularly benefit from a universal system.
“Winnebago County has both a municipal center that has a high population and a high level of poverty," said Klonicki, "and it also includes a lot of collar communities that are a little bit further away from the center of the resourcing and support for parents of young children."
A study from the early childhood organization Start Early also pointed to Winnebago County as a place with a significant need for universal newborn support.
Klonicki says it’s not necessarily because the county doesn’t have services, it’s that there’s not enough coordination so families don’t know how to access services. In order for the system to work, she says they’ll need to hire around 10 full-time nurses.
They still have to put together a funding structure to secure the grants to pay for the program and choose a lead agency to run it -- like the health department does in Stephenson County.
Dr. Sandra Martell is the head of the Winnebago County Health Department. She started her career as a home visiting nurse. She says you can measure success for this in a few ways. It could be the percentage of families participating or the number of connections you make.
But she likes to compare this type of family support to infrastructure. Martell says long-term investment in the foundation of the community can pay off in all sorts of ways.
“We continue to have issues around maternal and child health, whether it's low birth weight, whether it's school readiness or reading scores," said Martell. "If you're looking at health outcomes, I'm looking at reducing our infant mortality rate and reducing our maternal morbidity and mortality rates.”
At the state level, the Illinois Department of Human Services is working to scale universal support to even more communities.
For Tashunda Owens back in Freeport, universal newborn support means she doesn’t have to spend all of her time on the phone trying to coordinate different services with different agencies. And she doesn’t have to sit at home with questions, wondering if she’s doing something wrong or if something’s wrong with the baby.
“That was something that was just so wonderful" said Owens, "not have to wait for an appointment and you're just struggling until that time."
Now, she has more time to watch her family grow.
“My favorite time is nighttime," she said. "We're cooking. The kids are in the living room. They're either dancing with their cartoons, and my newborn, she is in her swing set and she's watching her sisters and smiling."
And if plans work out, more new parents in Winnebago County -- and perhaps beyond – will get a chance to do that.
