Maternity navigator Victoria Brown sees her clients weekly.
“As a navigator, when I'm asked to put it in one word, I call it support,” says Victoria Brown, a Philadelphia-based maternity navigator. She sees her clients once a week during and after their pregnancies. She says it’s the perfect job for someone like her: she spent years as a medical assistant in an OBGYN office. Now she’s in the community, putting that experience to work.
A maternity navigator is just that: a guide through a complex and emotional time. It's someone who helps plot your course and clear away the obstacles. Or, as Brown tells her clients, “Look at me like big sis,” the one who answers the questions they might not feel comfortable asking anyone else.
A navigator can address social drivers of health and provide emotional support
Brown sees women with chronic conditions, women who need to find safe housing or receive help from a food pantry. She sees women who don’t have cars or need childcare in order to visit the doctor. She sees women who all want the same thing: a healthy baby.
Victoria Brown, maternity navigator, greets her client and baby on a weekly visit.
“We are allotted this hour or so to be with the patient. And we use that time however we see fit for that family,” says Brown. “Whether it's supporting mom while she takes a shower, and you hold the baby for a minute or just being there so that she has an adult to talk to.”
Explore more: New home-based models of maternal health care fight disparities
Sometimes a patient needs more urgent help. “We’ll connect them with food pantries in their areas. If we can, we'll pick the food up for them,” says Brown. “Diaper banks in the city are also available and sometimes families don't know about these resources, like baby formula and rental assistance.”
Weekly visits help spot potential pregnancy or postpartum complications
Brown doesn't replace a parent's traditional OBGYN but is part of a multidisciplinary care team and has community health training. On most visits she checks a patient’s blood pressure. A high reading, headaches or swollen legs could be signs of a potentially life-threatening problem. If a patient is “worried about getting to a doctor’s appointment with the other little ones, or their car broke down,” she says, Brown can arrange transportation. She can also get a nurse practitioner on the phone right away and make a plan.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies are taking meaningful action in every ZIP code, forging partnerships to make a lasting impact.
Brown spends much of the hour with patients chatting about how the mother is feeling and whether she has what she needs to stay healthy and safe. Visiting a patient every week allows her to notice changes in a mother’s mood. She might gently probe for more details or simply listen. She might offer to set up an appointment for the patient to get screened for postpartum depression. Mental health conditions are one of the biggest risk factors for postpartum complications, which makes regular visits from a compassionate, trusted navigator who gets to know her patients more intimately even more vital.
Encouragement empowers patients to advocate for their needs
Doctor’s visits can be short, and Brown says her patients may not have time or feel comfortable asking a question. “I think they appreciate having connectivity to us,” she says. “They can always text or call their maternity navigator, and then we have our nurse practitioners we can look to or even get on the phone and call their OB provider and ask that question.” Patients may need clarification after a visit, “so being able to sit and map it out for them or get the answer, if I don't know, I'll ask somebody.”
Brown says some of her patients may not bring up a specific need at their appointments, but she knows her presence itself is reassuring. “They know that they have somebody there,” she says. “Some of them hold on to you really tight without saying a thing.”
One mother's experience: "She was like a counselor, too."
Zakiyyah, a Cayaba Care client, holds her son, who was born last summer.
Zakiyyah is a Cayaba Care client. Her son was born last summer. Her navigator made sure she had transportation to doctor’s appointments and a safe place for the baby to sleep. She also helped Zakiyyah work with her doctor to keep her high blood pressure in check. That's critical for preventing more dangerous conditions after childbirth. Just having someone to talk to, to answer questions, was vital for Zakiyyah. “Even though she's just a navigator, she was like a counselor, too, like a therapist a little bit,” she says. Now, she’s focused on her little boy. “As far as me growing up, I wasn’t given the tools of what I should be doing in life. I just hope that he adheres to the things that I want him to do in life,” she says. “I hope he'd be a successful young man. And I just hope, like everything that I didn't succeed in, he can succeed in and live a happier life. If I'm alive, he is going to be happy.”
For Independence Blue Cross, Cayaba Care is one part of a holistic approach to reducing disparities in maternal health. BCBS companies across the country are also tapping into the expertise of innovative partners to give mothers like Zakiyyah the support they need to have safe and healthy pregnancies.