Community baby shower aids new mothers & moms-to-be

By JEFF STITT

jstitt@yourmvi.com

Beverly’s Birthdays brought the phrase “it takes a village” to life Tuesday as its “Itty Bitty” program set up shop in Monessen for a community baby shower.

It’s an age-old tradition for an expectant mother to be surrounded by the gal pals and female relatives playing baby-name games and showing off all the cute gifts at the shower.

In recent years, some baby showers have even gone co-ed, allowing the fellas get to join in the fun.

Raising a baby is expensive, and so is throwing a baby shower with all the decorations, food and trimmings.

Preparing for motherhood is exciting, but it can come with a lot of worries — even if you have a support system that passes along hand-me-downs, babysits and comes bearing gifts to events like baby showers and birthday parties.

As part of the Beverly’s Birthday’s Itty Bitty Birthday Cheer program, the North Huntingdon-based nonprofit organization partners with agencies to provide group baby showers for mothers-to-be.

On Tuesday, Southwestern Pennsylvania Human Services partnered with Beverly’s Birthday’s to hold the community shower and health fair at the SPHS Monessen Family Center on Reed Avenue.

Beverly’s Birthdays: a part of ‘the village’

Thinking of the cost of a diaper bag, a stroller, a crib, a car seat — and then another car seat when the child gets bigger — can be daunting to a mom with a bundle of joy on the way.

And that’s not even figuring in clothes for the seemingly ever-growing child, formula, wipes, bottles or pacifiers.

The list goes on.

The cost of diapers alone can break the bank, coming in at prices ranging from around $10 for a small pack to upward of $60 a box at some stores.

Beverly’s Birthdays and SPHS couldn’t provide expectant mothers with everything they’ll need after the birth of their baby, but they made life a little easier for them Tuesday by offering links to resources and giving them the joy of a baby shower.

Paige Jones, Itty Bitty Program coordinator at Beverly’s Birthdays, said the organization has been holding Itty Bitty programs for a few years, but a baby shower had not been held in Monessen.

“We usually have I would say 10 to 15 providers on average that come and set up,” she said. “So it’s kind of like a health fair and then we kind of just throw a baby shower just like you would have for any baby shower, except we have more moms.”

She said there are typically 10 to 15 expectant mothers at each event, and 19 women registered for the shower in Monessen.

“We just play games, we have tons of prizes. They all get what we call an Itty Bitty Cheer Bin, which is a diaper bag filled with diapers, wipes, a bottle, a binky, a book and a little outfit,” Jones said, adding that the moms get hygiene products as well as “provider bags,” which are backpacks containing information from Women Infants and Children.

The moms also walk away with a box set of 12 children’s books.

“One book for each month of the baby’s first year,” Jones said.

To read the rest of the story, please see a copy of Wednesday’s Mon Valley Independent, call 724-314-0035 to subscribe or subscribe to our online edition at http://monvalleyindependent.com.