New Katrina Moms Face Challenges

Homeless And Without Jobs, New Mothers Face Extra Stresses

(AP)  First came the rising floodwaters, and the pregnant woman started praying.

Please, she said to herself, please don't let me give birth to my twins in this hot, dark attic surrounded by water. Finally, using a crowbar and hammer, friends pried open the roof and she made her way out by a leaky boat.

Then came her dramatic delivery.

After a few days in the Superdome, an ambulance rushed the woman out of the chaos toward a waiting helicopter. But before she arrived, Dwight and Dwayne entered this world — nine pounds in all — one month early. "It was a miracle," their mother, Antoinette Hickerson, says with a still-dazed smile.

Now comes the hard part.

Hickerson has to find a way to care for her premature twins even though she and her partner, Dwight Ward, have no home, no money, no jobs. They're now living in a special shelter for newborns at St. Patrick Catholic Church, trying to figure out where to go next.

Hickerson is among hundreds of Hurricane Katrina survivors who were rushed to this city — often by helicopter or ambulance — to deliver their babies. They now face the enormous pressures of being new mothers even as they struggle to piece their lives back together.

That's where folks here have come to the rescue: A network of hospitals, churches and volunteers has embraced new and expectant mothers, providing them with the daily necessities of life — along with a sense of hope.

Churches have converted parish halls and sanctuaries into temporary homes and nurseries, often with private rooms. Clothes, baby food, cribs, strollers, toys and blankets have been donated by the truckload. Volunteers have chauffeured moms to doctors, tracked down missing family members and wiped away tears.

"Every possible stress you have has got to be there," says Beth Manning, director of social services at Women's Hospital in Baton Rouge. "The baby blues, being separated from your family, and also not knowing where you're going to go or what's going to happen in the long run."