“Hardin County & LaRue County Community Baby Shower Brings New Connections for Families”

On this year, Hardin County residents faced many challenges as inflation has changed things for families. Some of the changes that have occurred within Hardin County include increased prices on food, gas, utilities, insurance, and rental costs. With those changes, it can impact household budgets and how much families can contribute to the necessary things that are needed especially for families that are expecting to expand with more children.  One of the ways that Hardin County makes this process a little easier for new moms and dads is to host a Community Baby Shower each year in the county to support families that are expecting a new baby and also for families who are in the beginning years of raising infants and toddlers.  

 This year several local organizations along with Kentucky State University’s family and consumer science agent collaborated with this year’s main sponsor Communicare’s Mum’s program to host Hardin County & LaRue County for the Community Baby Shower at the Hardin County Extension office.  A total of about 25 vendors participated in the Community Baby Shower in addition to the main supporters of the community program.

 Each year the goal of the event is to educate new moms on several concepts that include teaching proper sleeping techniques for infants, and techniques to have a healthy fetus from the beginning of a pregnancy until birth for new moms that are expecting.  The community program offers a host of classes, resources, and information for the program participants.  The participants who participate in this program gain a wealth of education on how to effectively use the techniques that are taught in the classes that are offered at this event on healthy sleep habits, healthy eating habits, creating schedules for babies, and more prepares families for the transition of having an infant in the home. It also provides them with some resources that they may not have been able to find on their own due to lack of resources of knowledge of where to find that information. As a part of this year’s program, there was a total of about 90 program participants.  

In addition to some of the information that was provided by Communicare Mums, KSU's family and consumer science agent goals for this program were to educate moms and dads on healthy eating habits for infants and toddlers to prevent choking for infants and toddlers. In order to meet this goal, program participants received fact sheets on how to feed their infants and toddlers using healthy eating techniques, and fact sheets on knowing what hunger cues look like in an infant. One of the main thing that parents need information on is when their child reaches milestones and how to help the baby to become successful and reaching each milestone thru setting goals helps to establish healthier eating habits in children which usually prevents accidents and can sometimes reduce the chances of the child overeating if parents follow the guidelines within the factsheets and use eating utensils designed for infants and toddlers. 

As a result of the program, a lot of program participants learned about some new Parenting Programs that were being offered locally. In addition, they also learned about what kinds of services that several of the community organizations offered from information on maternity education, health screenings & immunization charts for infants, prenatal care, harm reduction techniques, and information about special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children. The majority of the program participants seemed to have gained a new understanding of several healthy techniques on feeding, nutrition, and sleeping habits that can be used in providing their children with some safe and healthy feeding techniques and safe sleep techniques for their children after attending this program.

This program was a successful program resulting in at least 95% of the program participants being satisfied with the information that was gained from attending the program. This program expanded from the last time that it was offered by at least 10% in their being more people who participated in the program. The program did include a more diverse audience than on previous years. We look forward to offering this program in the future!