Help your pregnant daughter with: Finding community resources

The other day we posted about the topic "How much should parents help their pregnant single daughter?"We've received this question is various forms. Another way this has been phrased is "How does a mom support her pregnant daughter?" Keywords we've seen on our statistics include phrases like "helping your pregnant daughter." That post focused on the minimum basics of safe housing, nutrition, and medical care. Today let's talk about some other help beyond the minimum basics.

Beyond the minimum basics of housing, nutrition, and medical care, parents of a pregnant teen or college student should consider how they might help with these goals:

1. Helping your daughter remain in school until graduation.
2. Preventing subsequent adolescent pregnancies.
3. Improving parenting skills.
4. Locating and using community resources. (Today's topic)
5. Stabilizing family support systems.
6. Strengthening employability skills and efforts to become economically self-sufficient.

Again, your motive of considering these kinds of help is not to reward your daughter's sexual activity and pregnancy outside of marriage, but to help get her on the road to independence and to help give your grandchild a better start in life. Today's topic is:

4. Locating and using community resources. The first thing that may leap to your mind is government services. There is usually a variety of things your local social services may be able to help your pregnant daughter with, but there are lots of other sources of help too.

First, see if you have a pregnancy help center near you. Contact OptionLine.org to be connected to your local pregnancy help center. They often can help your daughter by providing mentoring and education on: pregnancy, parenting, adoption and abortion. They may be able to help her with resources like maternity clothes, baby clothes, baby equipment, diapers and baby food. Pregnancy help centers often keep referral lists of other local resources that your family would find useful.

If you need help with medical care for your pregnant daughter or her child, see if she qualifies for Medicaid.

If you need help with groceries to encourage good nutrition for your pregnant daughter and her child, see if she qualifies for WIC (Women, Infants and Children).

If your daughter is not able to live with you or other family and friends during her pregnancy, see if there is a maternity home where she would like to live.

Look for support groups, Bible studies, and classes at local churches.

Find out what programs are available at local hospitals, public schools, and non-profit agencies. To find some local non-profit agencies, use the national United Way website to find your local United Way website; from there you can often browse through the membership directory to get ideas of agencies to call.