A young lady that I know quite well is unwed, has a very low paying job, has no medical insurance, and is pregnant here in Texas. Are there free clinics that she can go to get her prenatal care? How will she ever pay for the expensive delivery of the baby? Does Texas offer to help pay for some of the costs of having a baby?
Check with the local health department.
Well, the first resource…
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/affiliateinfo/stateinformation.asp?state=TX
The local PP group (however controversial) is probably one of the best sources your friend has for knowing her options in the area.
She may be eligible for WIC benefits too.
http://www.tdh.state.tx.us/wichd/
WIC provides grocery vouchers for pregnant women and babies up to 5 (or 6, not sure). We’ve used it, and it has been a huge help. The financial guidelines are pretty liberal, too.
She should find a Public Health Nursing program too–they could provide her with other resources.
Best,
karol
I know that there are programs that will help her out quite a bit. Sorry, I don’t know the specifics (I think it’s medicare?) but I have a friend who had a child and had a lot of help from Uncle Sam. The only difference is he arranged a shotgun wedding (he would’ve married this girl anyway) and I know this helped somehow for insurance reasons. Tell your friend to get on the internet and on the phone, because now is the time to do some major research. I’m positive that she’ll be able to get substantial help; government programs are set up specifically to help people in situations like hers, and it’s actually quite common.
If she agrees to adopt it out via an adoption broker the target family will likely pay her expenses. If she intends on keeping the baby she might want to have the paternity established legally now, while the father may still be in the picture and cooperative re any future CS claims. She needs to get his SS# now also.
Here is where SW Texas Planned Parenthood refers people for adoption info
Parkland hospital in dallas delivers more babies than anyone else in the world. It’s the public hospital and they are very good…BUT it’s very hard to get fast service there because it’s overcrowded. They never turn anyone away…and because of that you get a lot of illegal aliens sneak there to have their baby because it’ll be free and the baby will be a US citizen.
But like, I said, it’s free and they know what they’re doing.