Homeless and Pregnant

1. Prenatal program

2. Category of problem: Health/ Medical

3. Level of problem: State

4. An “enacted” policy that has been passed to help with a problem/issue that individuals/families face

5. This is important because it affects homeless women and childrens' health. The Homeless Prenatal Program help homeless woman and unborn children get the nutrients they need to have a healthy mom and baby.

6. Being homeless is already hard enough but what if you were homeless, pregnant, and couldn't get the prenatal vitamins that are needed to have a healthy mom and baby? Obviously, we know homeless people do not have health care, so how are they going to get the nutrients needed for pregnancy. Martha Ryan from San Francisco started The Homeless Prenatal Program after see the raise of homeless and pregnant women. Homeless Prenatal Program helps homeless pregnant women get the necessary vitamins and nutrient to support a healthy baby. It is very important that every woman have a healthy baby because an unhealthy one requires lots of medical attention meaning lots of money for the family or tax payers. What does that mean for homeless mothers? It means if a homeless mother has an unhealthy baby, they are more likely to burden the mother or family and be dependent on federal/state programs to help them survive. Continually costing the system, tax payers, and society more money to support those programs and the child/children. Preventive care like prenatal vitamins can take care of this burden, Ryan has helped more than  80,000 families with her one program. We need more programs like this one in the U.S. If we could start a Homeless Prenatal Program in all of the major cities in the U.S., just think about how many homeless families we could help as well as saving tax payers money?