Re:Start The Center for Adult Education will soon begin offering a nine-week Mom’s Club program for expectant mothers who do not have a GED and are less than 27 weeks pregnant.
Re:Start’s Judith Miller gives baby baskets to Mom’s Club program participants.“What we’ve found is that the mother’s education level is directly connected to whether or not her child will graduate from high school,” said Judith Miller of Re:Start, who leads the Mom’s Club program. “We started focusing on expectant moms in the area, many of whom don’t have a high school diploma. Studies show that 50 percent of people on Medicare don’t know what the word prenatal means.”
The new nine-week intensive Mom’s Club program will be held on-site at the Re:Start center on Amnicola Highway. The program is free and will begin July 8. Registration is currently open and Miller encourages interested participants to register early. Only mothers who are less than 27 weeks into their pregnancies can participate. Each week, participants will meet on Friday for three hours to learn the basics of pregnancy and motherhood.
“This program will empower them to sit down and start taking responsibility for their care,” Miller said.
Miller will give each participant “Baby Basics,” written by Heidi Markoff, which has detailed information on everything from doctors appointments and pregnancy vocabulary to an emphasis on health and nutrition for both the baby and mother.