Maternal and Child Health Nurses Serving Downeast Maine Reflect on Legacy of Care While Expressing Concern About Future Provision of Services in the Region

Mon, Sep 8th, 2025

by DCP Staff

The Maternal & Child Health program at Downeast Community Partners (DCP) will end on September 30, 2025. This change is independent of DCP’s recently announced partnership with Aroostook County Action Program (ACAP), which had hoped to continue the program.  Rather, the program termination is the result of the State of Maine’s decision to not continue contracts for maternal & child health nursing services, beyond that offered by the state’s public health nurses, in all but Maine’s five southernmost counties. A new request for proposals for the service was only issued for York, Cumberland, Androscoggin, Franklin, and Oxford counties.

In Washington and Hancock Counties, that news has families who have benefitted from the program, and nurses who have served the region for decades worried about the services mothers and their infant children will receive moving forward.  This is especially true in the wake of increasing numbers of rural Maine hospitals closing their labor and delivery units, including those Downeast.

“I am deeply saddened to know this program is being discontinued. Families in Maine are losing an invaluable resource that supports healthy babies, stronger families, and more resilient communities,” said Sarah Becker, who benefited from the Maternal & Child Health program through DCP after the recent birth of her youngest child and understands well the void its end will create in Hancock and Washington counties.

DCP’s Maternal & Child Health Nurse Coordinator Jen Winter states, “We would all love to continue with the program and the services it provides to our community members, but the lack of available funding makes that impossible.” The shift to public health nursing represents both a change of focus and potential decrease in capacity to provide services to families. At DCP, the Maternal & Child Health program has been staffed by three full-time and one per diem nurse, all with full caseloads. At the same time, three public health nurses have also maintained full caseloads in Hancock and Washington counties. Based on the numbers alone, the families in need of nursing support versus the nurses available to provide that support, Winter expresses concern that “it may not be possible to provide families with the level of preventative education and support that is available through the current program.”

According to Winter, the greatest value of the Maternal & Child Health program has been the opportunity “to be able to go into the home and provide support and education to expectant mothers and young families and ease them into parenting. [Being part of DCP], we had a wraparound approach with the ability to connect families to heating assistance, food pantries, and other essential supports.”

“Having a nurse visit regularly provided essential support during a complicated postpartum recovery. She tracked my daughter’s growth, answered questions about development and milestones, and offered guidance that eased both my transition to having a newborn and my own healing,” said Becker. The mom further highlights that the help she received “went beyond routine care,” from suggesting just the right bottles to address her daughter’s feeding challenges to helping Becker find a local healthcare provider in network with her insurance company to address her post-partum needs. She says, “This program was a lifeline. It gave me access to care and resources I could not have secured on my own and provided reassurance during one of the most vulnerable times in a parent’s life.”

Maternal & Child Health Nursing has been funded at DCP through a state contract for the past 8 years, assisting hundreds of families throughout Hancock and Washington counties. In 2024, DCP’s Maternal & Child Health nurses supported 234 participants and in 2025 to date, they supported 199 participants and their families.

DCP’s nurses are actively engaged in the process of discharging all families who are nearing the end of their care journey. Families that will continue to need ongoing care beyond September 30 are being transitioned to the DHHS public health nurses for follow-up.

Winter says she is most proud of the Maternal & Child Health nurses who made the challenges of new parenthood easier for so many families: “We’ve had an amazing team of nurses over the years, and we’ve all stuck together to the very end, providing comprehensive care to our community members. We all really value caring for our community members, and we will miss that.”