New program tackles food insecurity among pregnant women

Tackling food insecurity from cooking demonstrations to meal plans — AHN’s First Steps and Beyond Program partnered with the American Heart Association to make sure that new moms have access to healthier food options.

“I was eating everything that I looked at,” Tamia Felder said.

Last year Felder found out she was pregnant with twins, and shortly after learning that she was eating for three, the cravings began.

“It was junk, I felt so bad, but I had to eat it, if I didn’t get my craving, I was not going to be a happy camper,” she said.

Felder, a single mom, told Channel 11 that some days during pregnancy eating healthy was simply too difficult to balance. Working full-time, she said fast food was sometimes easier.

But in October when she gave birth to a healthy baby boy and girl that all changed. Felder’s doula signed her up for a new initiative, Food Rx, which tackles food insecurity.

The pilot program brings together doulas from AHN and UPMC, as well as caregivers from Kangaroo Birthing & Maternity Concierge and the MAYA organization, to provide more than 50 high-risk or food-insecure obstetric patients with tailored nutritional plans as well as vouchers for free fruits and vegetables at participating grocery stores.

“To be honest I had forgotten I was signed up, I saw the card in the mail, and it made it so much easier because I was pregnant when I first got signed up,” Felder said.

The debit card in the mail was loaded with $50 to purchase fresh fruit and vegetables, and every month for the next year the produce will be delivered to her doorstep.

“We know when we have healthy outcomes, we know we are going to have healthy babies and that is our mission we want to make sure every baby makes it beyond age one,” explained Takiyah Durham, the Director of First Steps and Beyond.

The Food Rx debit card is used exclusively on fresh produce and moms can use it at participating farmers markets, Giant Eagle, Walmart, East End Food Co-op, and even via Instacart.

“If we can help people control their weight while they are in pregnancy, even lose weight, we can avoid a lot of the other complications — pre-eclampsia, hypertension, diabetes,” shared Dr. Margaret Larkins-Pettigrew, the Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer at AHN and Highmark.

Felder told us that once she changed her diet to eating healthier, she saw her energy increase and her cravings drastically change.

“I got to take care of myself to take care of them,” she said.

FSB was originally established in 2021, mobilizing the community to address Black infant and maternal mortality in Allegheny County. A cornerstone of these efforts is to reduce the number of preterm births by improving the health and well-being of pregnant patients.

According to recent reports by the Allegheny County Department of Health, Pittsburgh’s Black maternal mortality rate is higher than Black mortality rates in 97% of similar cities, and fetal deaths are two times more likely among Pittsburgh’s Black women compared to white women. In addition, the number of obstetric patients diagnosed with new-onset hypertensive disorders during pregnancy has more than doubled in the last two decades.

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