from Metro Weekly and North Hamilton Weekly, Chattanooga Times Free Press Community News, May 26, 2010. By Lindsey Lowe
Expectant mother Maycie Butler, a Baby Basics participant, shops for her son who is due this July. (CTFP Staff Photo)
"While Re:Start is best known for getting adults back on the career track, Chattanooga’s Center for Adult Education also offers a program called Baby Basics, which combines prenatal health education with appropriate literacy training and community support for expectant mothers.
“This program not only empowers women to learn the vocabulary associated with pregnancy and build relationships with their physicians, but it also gets them involved in their pregnancies,” said Re:Start health literacy coordinator Judith Miller, who oversees the program which she described as being like the ever-popular “What to Expect When Expecting,” only presented in a much more accessible, “user-friendly” way.
She said the information provided during Baby Basics is paramount because there is a direct and observable correlation between the literacy of the parent and the well-being of the child.
“Literacy affects one’s life in all kinds of ways, and in the case of the women I work with (it affects) their health and that of their unborn babies,” Miller said."
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