Host: What kinds of services can birth parents expect from an adoption agency?

Eliza Niemann: Well, when a birth parent is exploring adoption and is looking at an agency to see what they might be able to do for her and help her with. A birth parent can usually rely on counseling services and unlimited counseling. By the way, all services are free of charge to birth parents, so unlimited counseling, emotional support, assistants locating different types of resources. One of the most important ones is prenatal care, it is not in common for a birth parent to call an agency and not have any prenatal care setup. So, she needs usually help with that, finding a doctor or a clinic. Sometimes obtaining health insurance, she still may not have that or medicate. That might be something that she will need assistance with, usually agencies can help with that. If she needs to get maternity cloths or any other resources, housing, agencies can not necessarily provide that themselves. But they can often connect them with community resources that can provide that. Again, this is one of those areas that it really varies on state to state, depending on what the law will allow.