In early 2025, the Sarasota Memorial Health Care System discovered several hundred women in its surrounding communities couldn't access prenatal care.
By that February, the public health system launched a pregnancy care team, which links pregnant patients to local obstetric providers according to their risk levels and insurance. "That way, we could get the right patient to the right provider," says Abby Olsen, director of Women and Children's Services at Sarasota Memorial.
The program has helped women like Alana Draper, who was 17 years old when she became pregnant with her second child.
She gave birth to her first baby — a girl named A'Miracle — at age 15 in 2023 while she was in Tampa's foster care system. Both pregnancies were traumatic, she remembers, marred by threats to take away her kids should she get pregnant again. She hid her second pregnancy for seven months, forfeiting prenatal care in fear of retribution.
Two days before her 18th birthday, Draper was sent to a group home in Sarasota and eventually went into pre-term labor. She was stabilized and introduced to the new initiative from the Sarasota Memorial Health Care System.
An OB nurse navigator connected her to the Sarasota County Department of Health, Sarasota Medical Pregnancy Center and nonprofits Healthy Start Coalition of Sarasota County and First 1,000 Days Suncoast. Altogether, the network helped find her safe housing, coordinate childcare and furnish her new apartment with donated items like furniture and baby clothes.
Draper gave birth to her second daughter — Ava — 10 days after she moved into her new apartment last July. The team has since linked more than 1,000 women to prenatal care.
"Coming from having my first daughter at 15 in a group home to having a support system after being in foster care, it was definitely a difference," says Draper. She turns 19 this month and is now on First 1000 Days' steering committee and the SMH pregnancy care team's advisory board. In August, she will begin attending a nursing program at the State College of Florida.