Drive-Thru Baby Showers Serve Express Needs of Pregnant Veterans in Atlanta

Published

2 years ago

May 11, 2023

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When 28-year-old Navy veteran Carisma Carter pulled her car up to the front of the Atlanta VA Clinic, her seat was pushed far back from the steering wheel to make room for her big belly. Carter was 8 months pregnant.

This article is from a partnership that includesWABE,NPRand KFF Health News. It can be republished for free.

“I’m having two boys, twins. It’s my first pregnancy,” she said.

Carter knows the pregnancy risks she could face as a Black woman, especially in Georgia, where data shows Black women are more than twice as likely as white women to die during or within a year after a pregnancy.

“I take care of my body during the pregnancy, but, yeah, I’m very aware,” Carter said. “And I just try to stay positive.”

In 2021, women made up about 17% of the U.S. militarys active-duty force. And women are the fastest-growing group of veterans in the country, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

A recent report from Rand Corp. outlines some of the ways the health needs of women differ from mens, including pregnancy and childbirth. And health researchers have said women veterans may be at heightened risk for pregnancy complications, compared with their civilian counterparts.

A few years ago, the Atlanta VA Clinic got creative with its outreach to pregnant patients. It began throwing surprise baby showers for small groups of patients. The goal is to cement relationships with the clinical staff, make sure pregnant veterans get to all their regular and specialist appointments, and help ensure pregnant people have the supplies they need as they near delivery. A trained maternity care coordinator manages each pregnant veteran’s care.

After the covid-19 pandemic emerged, the VA transformed the showers into low-contact “drive-thru” events, which occur about every three months, and serve roughly 20 pregnant veterans each time.

At a shower in February, volunteers set up in front of the main entrance of the Atlanta VA. The building is concrete, beige, and bland. But the volunteers created a celebratory atmosphere by decorating a folding table and stacking it high with free diaper bags and other baby supplies.

A car pulled up to the table and a volunteer with a clipboard began hyping up the small crowd, which then burst into applause and cheers.

“Thank you for your service!” they called out. “Congratulations!”

The pregnant veteran behind the wheel looked surprised at first. Then she broke into a big smile. She rolled down her car window.

Volunteers and VA staff members clustered around the car and offered her a tiara of green, white, and pink flowers.

“Would you like to wear it?” one asked. “Stunning! Remind us what you’re having?”

“I’m having a girl,” the woman said.

While they chatted through the open window about her due date and health, other volunteers rushed forward with supplies. Some piled boxes of diapers into the back seat. The final, parting gesture was a $100 gift card. Email Sign-Up

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Kathleen O’Loughlin, who manages the women veterans program at the Atlanta VA, said the events offer last-minute baby needs.

“Because we know there’s a lot,” she said.

O’Loughlin said the health center can’t invite every pregnant veteran to these group baby showers, so they focus on women with higher-risk pregnancies, including veterans carrying multiples or those who have a disability related to their military service.

“Now, a lot of the women have different musculoskeletal issues because of their service, [or] a lot of service-connected disabilities that civilian women aren’t exposed to because they don’t have those same job responsibilities,” O’Loughlin said. “This is an extra set of eyeballs on them. Are you making sure you’re taking your blood pressure medicines? Are you getting all of your appointments, are you meeting with your doctors?”

U.S. maternal mortality rates increased again during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Physical and psychological injuries linked to military service can increase the risk of poor maternal outcomes, according to Jamya Pittman, an internist and the medical director for the women veterans program in Atlanta.

“A lot of our women veterans have the diagnoses of anxiety, depression. They may also have PTSD, in addition to a myriad of other diagnoses like hypertension and diabetes,” Pittman said. “We also know that pregnancy in itself can be a stressor on the body.”

The Atlanta VA designed the baby showers to boost veterans’ well-being, she explained. Program volunteers are predominantly also women veterans.

“This visible showing of support, this community engagement, this celebration,” she said, “is our way of helping to decrease stress and allow the woman veteran to know that she has a partner in her health care and with the arrival of the baby.”

Nationally, the Department of Veterans Affairs is focusing on women’s health at all life stages.

The Atlanta women veterans program serves more than 24,000 veterans in the region, and about 9% of them are pregnant at any time.

Two years ago, Congress passed bipartisan legislation mandating a national study of pregnancy outcomes among veterans, including any racial disparities.

“There has never been a comprehensive evaluation of how our nation’s growing maternal mortality crisis is impacting our women Veterans, even though they may be at higher risk due to their service,” wrote co-sponsor Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) on the day the bill was introduced.

The law, called the Protecting Moms Who Served Act, also provided $15 million to support maternity care coordination programs at VA facilities. Carisma Carter, a Navy veteran pregnant with twins, is working with a maternity care coordinator from the Atlanta VAs women veterans program during her pregnancy her first.(Jess Mador / WABE)

The Atlanta VA is using some of its share of that money to make sure pregnant veterans receive ongoing medical care for a full year after giving birth.

Carter, the Navy veteran who stopped by the baby shower, said she appreciated the outreach from the VA.

“Just checking on the women, supporting them, making sure that they have everything that they need for the baby,” she said, “because a lot of people don’t have that support, they don’t have family, they’re doing this on their own.”

Carter gave birth to her twins on Feb. 25. She and the babies are doing well, she said. The women veterans programs maternity care coverage continues for 12 months after the twins birth.

This article is from a partnership that includes WABE, NPR, and KFF Health News. Related Topics Multimedia States Audio Georgia Pregnancy Veterans' Health Women's Health Contact Us Submit a Story Tip

Entertainment

Paul Mescal bluntly appraises his meeting with the King at Gladiator II premiere

Published

2 hours ago

November 20, 2024

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Paul Mescal bluntly appraises his meeting with the King at Gladiator II premiere

Irish actor Paul Mescal says meeting King Charles was not on his “list of priorities”.

The 28-year-old star was introduced to the reigning monarch at the Gladiator II world premiere in London last week.

The historical epic picks up 20 years after the Oscar-winning original, and marks Mescal‘s first big studio movie after success in TV and independent film, playing Roman warrior Lucius Verus.

Talking about his brush with royalty on the red carpet, Mescal told US outlet Variety he did not see it coming.

Speaking at the film’s Los Angeles premiere, Mescal said: “How wild is it? It’s definitely not something that I thought was in the bingo cards.

“I’m Irish, so it’s not on the list of priorities”.

He then swiftly turned the answer to the film’s 86-year-old director, Ridley Scott, saying: “It’s an amazing thing for Ridley because I know how important that is for him.

“So, to see his film celebrated in that context was pretty special.”

Ahead of the premiere, both Mescal and Scott had enjoyed a champagne reception at Buckingham Palace, and so were already in a celebratory mood on their arrival.

Due to the large number of people at the event, Mescal admitted it was also hard to hear what was being said during his exchange with the King, so he was “nodding along and smiling”.

The world premiere was held in aid of the Film and TV Charity, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, and marked the first premiere Charles attended as King.

The King also met with Mescal’s co-stars including Oscar-winner Denzel Washington and Narcos actor Pedro Pascal.

Other celebrities to attend included actor Joseph Fiennes and TV presenter Claudia Winkleman.

Reviews of the film have been mixed thanks to its more-is-more attitude to CGI and OTT storylines, but there is broad agreement that audiences will leave the cinema somewhat entertained.

Speaking to Sky News at the London event, Mescal said being part of the movie was a “wildly… overwhelming” experience“.

Sir Ridley – who cast Mescal in the role after a brief Zoom chat with the actor – told Sky News his reason for choosing him was that he saw aspects of “a young Albert Finney” in him.

The original Gladiator starred Russell Crowe as Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius. The Australian actor does not return for the sequel.

Joaquin Phoenix also had a starring role in the first film, which Scott later admitted he nearly walked out of.

Both Mescal and Scott have teased that they would both be up for a third film.

Gladiator II is in cinemas now.

Entertainment

Zoe Ball to leave her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show – and will be replaced by Scott Mills

Published

2 hours ago

November 20, 2024

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Zoe Ball to leave her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show - and will be replaced by Scott Mills

Zoe Ball is leaving her BBC Radio 2 breakfast show after six years.

The 53-year-old, who recently lost her mother to cancer, will present her last show on Friday, 20 December.

She said she was leaving to focus on family, but will remain part of the Radio 2 team and will give further details next year.

Announcing the news on her Tuesday show, she said: “After six years of fun times alongside you all on the breakfast show, I’ve decided it’s time to step away from the early alarm call and start a new chapter.

“You know I think the world of you all, listeners, and it truly has been such a privilege to share the mornings with you, to go through life’s little ups and downs, we got through the lockdown together, didn’t we?

“We’ve shared a hell of a lot, the good times, the tough times, there’s been a lot of laughter. And I am going to miss you cats.”

Scott Mills will replace Ball on the breakfast show following her departure next month.

“Zoe and I have been such good friends now for over 25 years and have spent much of that time as part of the same radio family here at Radio 2 and also on Radio 1,” he said.

“She’s done an incredible job on this show over the past six years, and I am beyond excited to be handed the baton.”

Hugging outside the BBC building on the day of the announcement, Ball said she was “really chuffed for my mate and really excited about it”.

Ball was the first female host of both the BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 breakfast shows, starting at the Radio 1 breakfast show in 1998, and taking over her current Radio 2 role from Chris Evans in 2020 after he left the show.

She took a break from hosting her show over the summer, returning in September.

Ahead of her stint in radio, Ball – who is the daughter of children’s presenter Johnny Ball – co-hosted the BBC’s Saturday morning children’s magazine show Live & Kicking alongside Jamie Theakston for three years from 1996.

She has two children, Woody and Nelly, with her ex-husband, DJ and musician Norman Cook, known professionally as Fatboy Slim.

Ball said in her announcement her last show towards the end of December will be “just in time for Christmas with plenty of fun and shenanigans”.

“While I’m stepping away from the Breakfast Show, I’m not disappearing entirely – I’ll still be a part of the Radio 2 family, with more news in the New Year,” she added.

“I’m excited to embrace my next chapter, including being a mum in the mornings, and I can’t wait to tune in on the school run!”

Helen Thomas, head of Radio 2, said: “Zoe has woken up the nation on Radio 2 with incredible warmth, wit and so much joy since January 2019, and I’d like to thank her for approaching each show with as much vim and vigour as if it were her first. I’m thrilled that she’ll remain an important part of the Radio 2 family.”

Mills, 51, got his first presenting role aged just 16 for a local station in Hampshire, and went on to present in Bristol and Manchester, before joining BBC Radio 1 in 1998.

He got his first permanent role on Radio 2 in 2022, replacing Steve Wright, after previously working as a cover presenter on the station.

Entertainment

Dune: Prophecy star Olivia Williams says series is the first time she has felt confident her scenes would not be cut

Published

2 hours ago

November 20, 2024

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Dune: Prophecy star Olivia Williams says series is the first time she has felt confident her scenes would not be cut

British actress Olivia Williams has said that in more than 30 years of acting on screen, starring in Dune: Prophecy is the first time she has felt confident her scenes would not be cut from a project.

Williams, who has appeared in films including The Sixth Sense, Rushmore and An Education, and portrayed Camilla Parker Bowles, before she became Queen, in the final two seasons of The Crown, can now be seen in the TV prequel to the blockbuster Denis Villeneuve films.

She stars alongside her close friend Emily Watson, with the pair playing the Harkonnen sisters – two women fighting forces that threaten the future of humankind.

Based on the Dune and Sisterhood of Dune novels, the Sky Atlantic show is set 10,000 years before the birth of Timothee Chalamet‘s character, Paul Atreides, in the films, and follows the two women as they found the fabled sisterhood that will later become known as the Bene Gesserit.

Despite knowing each other for 30 years, and even working at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at the same time, the show marks Williams and Watson’s first time on screen together.

Williams says they are often asked why they have never acted together before. There’s a simple answer, she tells Sky News. “It’s because there are no scripts for two women of the same age to lead a story.

“We’re used to playing the character that can, if the film’s running a bit long, be cut out because you don’t genuinely affect the plot of the show. Well, just try cutting the Harkonnen sisters out of this story!”

She adds: “We knew that our work would be used – which, in 35 years, I’d say is the first time that’s happened.”

In Dune: Prophecy, Watson plays the Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit Sisters, Valya Harkonnen, whilst Williams plays her younger sibling, Sister Tula Harkonnen.

Watson, who recently starred alongside Oscar winner Cillian Murphy in Small Things Like These, says it feels wonderful to be given the freedom to portray strong, stoic characters.

“When we were first cast, we went and sat in the National Portrait Gallery and sat in front of portraits of Queen Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, Bloody Mary, and just thought about that time when those very powerful women were front and centre, and terrified and deeply paranoid because everybody wanted to either marry them or kill them.”

The two actresses first met outside the Black Swan pub in Stratford-upon-Avon when they were starting out in their careers with the nearby RSC.

Williams says it “doesn’t feel real” that their careers have become as successful as they have.

“It is an extraordinary thing that I said I would stop at 30 and go and try to be a lawyer. I didn’t intend to be working as an actor and now I can’t believe my luck.

“You get to the end of every job and you go, was that the last time I will act? And that is a really tough way to, you know, bring up a family and you can’t get a bloody mortgage or life insurance with a lifestyle like that. So anyway, that was my real-life whinge.”

Watson said the experience of leading a big-budget series together was not lost on her, and she felt an onus to help create a positive environment for the younger actors.

“We were like the CEOs and we were making sure that everybody was seen and felt part of something and were feeling okay about how everything was going down. And it felt like a really healthy way to do it.”

Dune: Prophecy is available to watch on Sky Atlantic and Now