A program that helps first-time moms have healthy pregnancies and healthy babies is under-utilized, leaders say, and they’re making a push to bump up enrollment.

The Nurse-Family Partnership program features a nurse who makes home visits to low-income, first-time mothers starting before the 28th week of pregnancy and lasting through the child’s second birthday.

“It’s a classic public health model,” said Dr. Nancy Welch, director of the Western Tidewater Health District. “We’re helping to produce future adults who will be better citizens.”

Four nurse home visitors work for the program, including Mariah Ayala, who has been with it since October. She left the hospital setting and said she gets more of a chance to make a lasting difference with the Nurse-Family Partnership.

“The reason why I entered nursing was because I wanted to help people,” Ayala said.

The program started in Western Tidewater in 2012 and held its first graduation in 2015.

A local study found that mothers in the program had lower rates of extreme low birth weight, premature births and extremely premature births compared to a control group, Welch said.

“Those numbers speak for themselves,” Welch said.

Longer-term trials of the program in other areas of the country have found even greater benefits further down the road — a 48-percent reduction in child abuse and neglect; a 56-percent reduction in emergency room visits for accidents and poisonings; a 59-percent reduction in arrests of the child at age 15; a 67-percent reduction in behavioral and intellectual programs in the child at age 6; and 72 percent fewer convictions of the mothers at the child’s age 15.

The program was founded by Dr. David Olds, whose research standardized the program nationwide and continues to provide the basis of training. Nurse home visitors are taught to do motivational interviewing — for example, asking a mother how a change would affect her life and why she wants to make the change rather than just telling her to do so.

“Somebody’s not going to change unless they’re ready,” Ayala said.

The nurse home visitors are able to check on the health of mother and baby, whether the baby is hitting development milestones and other things. They can help connect the mother to resources if needed.

“I feel like, as a professional, I will get to have an impact on them,” Ayala said. “It’s not about what we as a nurse want for them. It’s all about what’s important to them.”

Welch said teaching mothers how to play with their babies and work on early literacy skills is important.

“We’ve been so focused on testing that we’ve forgotten the value of play,” Welch said.

“We’re in there week after week reinforcing those healthy habits,” Ayala said.

The program is free to the families, as Medicaid pays for the visits. Ayala said many referrals come from the Women, Infants and Children program office, and the program is trying to ramp up relationships with doctor’s offices so they, too, know about the program to refer patients. However, no referral at all is needed.

Welch said women shouldn’t be afraid to become a part of the program.

“This is a benefit to people; it’s not a stigma factor,” she said.

For more information about the program, call Meredith Taylor at 514-4736 or email meredith.taylor@vdh.virginia.gov.