Community Baby Shower gives tips for new mothers, families
Jul. 7—PRINCETON — Visitors coming to the Mercer County Baby Shower were asked Friday whether a wooden baby crib was safe.
A power cord was curled next to the crib. Its mattress didn't fit inside. It was held together with tape and zip ties. The lessons that exhibit offered were part of the services, goods and information being offered at the Karen Preservati Center in Princeton during the Community Baby Shower organized by Child Protect of Mercer County.
Mothers-to-be, mothers with new babies and young families were going all around the center's social hall and visited participants such as the Governors Highway Safety Association, Catholic Charities, Child Law, Community Connections, Inc. WVU Health-Princeton Community Hospital, Starting Points Family Resource Center, MountainHeart/Birth to Three, CASE Home Visitation/ Early Head Start and other providers.
"Today we have the Community Baby Shower. We're just the coordinators of the event," said Tonya Milam of Starting Points, which works with Child Protect. "A lot of local organizations that serve mothers and children are at the event to provide resources and information to the mothers."
Stacks of child safety seats and other safety items were waiting for the visitors.
"It's for new mothers or mothers with a newborn," Milam said of the baby shower. "So every mom who comes here today will leave with a large item such as a carseat, a Pack N' Play, a highchair that is focused around safety for the baby," she said. "It's all free and there's no demographic requirements. It's just prior registration, so we advertised stuff like that through our partner organizations that are acting as vendors or our social media page."
About 51 mothers had confirmed their reservations for the annual event, Milam said.
"We've done this for probably about eight to 10 years. I've been over the event for the last five," she recalled as more visitors arrived. "I love this center. We have plenty of room. Definitely accessible for everybody."
The visitors registered and joined the long line of people visiting the various agencies.
"Mom's will be learning about safe sleep, breastfeeding, healthcare plans, carseat safety, Narcan and other programs like CASE and suicide prevention is here," Milam said. There's also health services here, counseling, so we try to offer a broad range of information. We have someone here with the Governors Highway Safety Program so if a mom wants a carseat installed they can leave here with it installed per the regulations. It's a good resource to have them here and help install them as soon as they get the seat."
Mothers also learned about topics such as childhood nutrition.
"We're a supplemental nutrition education program and today we're focusing on a lot of the breastfeeding aspects of our program," said Kathy Rotenberry of WIC (Women, Infants, Children). Breastfeeding in the healthiest first food. By participating with WIC, we provide a lot of supplemental foods, education, breastfeeding classes. We're here to provide information and really promote the WIC breastfeeding. We're not a formula program. We're a nutrition education program."
New mothers and families often need new items when a baby arrives, so other agencies offer assistance. Mary's Cradle, a nonprofit organization in Bluefield, provides various items.
"We're a maternity and infant community outreach center, so we provide the basic needs for families in our community totally free," said Missy Franklin, director of Mary's Cradle. "We've been around for about 30 years and today we're just providing information and diaper rash cream and we have a little giveaway."
— Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com
Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com