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 Maternity Care Coordinators will help you navigate and access maternity care within and outside VA
Pregnant women Veterans: Every VA facility has a Maternity Care Coordinator ready to support you, provide health screenings, and ensure you have access to needed education, resources, and supplies throughout your pregnancy and the year afterward. Maternity Care Coordinators understand the unique needs of women Veterans, and having one at your side means you’ve got an advocate to ensure you and your baby receive the best care.
What is a Maternity Care Coordinator?
For pregnant Veterans choosing to use VA Maternity Care benefits, a Maternity Care Coordinator is a member of your VA health care team who specializes in helping you navigate your maternity care. Maternity Care Coordinators are uniquely trained to support you. They have a deep understanding of both Veteran needs and maternal care, ensuring you receive trusted, specialized health support.
The Support You Need
Your Maternity Care Coordinator will contact you every trimester of pregnancy, after delivery, and quarterly in the year after delivery. During these eight calls, your Maternity Care Coordinator will make sure you get the care you need by helping you:
- Navigate health care services both inside and outside of VA
- Access care for your other social, physical, and mental health needs
- Connect to community resources
- Learn more about maternity and newborn care and provide educational materials
- Obtain supplies like nursing bras, breast pumps, maternity belts, and more
- Answer questions about benefits and billing
- Coordinate follow up care after delivery
Regular calls with your Maternity Care Coordinator ensure essential health screenings are completed and follow-up for medical conditions (such as gestational diabetes and high blood pressure) is coordinated. Your Maternity Care Coordinator will also discuss risk factors, birth spacing, family planning options, and baby safety, provide educational resources, and refer you for additional care as needed.
How to Get Started
Whether it’s your first pregnancy or you’re adding to your family, your Maternity Care Coordinator is in your corner, ready to provide guidance, resources, and compassionate care. You don’t have to navigate the system alone—VA is here for you and your growing family.
Contact your VA health care provider or your local Women Veterans Program Manager to connect with your Maternity Care Coordinator. We are here to ensure you have the support and resources you need. Learn more by visiting the VA Women’s Health Maternity Care page.
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 Are you a pregnant Veteran using VA maternity benefits? VA can connect you with a maternity care coordinator who will provide support throughout your pregnancy and the year after.
Periodic calls are a key benefit, providing you with personalized guidance, health check-ins, answers to your questions and timely resources. Your maternity care coordinator helps keep you on track.
There are Many Ways to Breastfeed Your Baby
Breastfeeding Classes
Practical skills to help you meet your breastfeeding goals.
Postpartum Mental Health Support
Taking care of baby starts with taking care of yourself.
Lactation Consultants
Personalized guidance and support.
Social Workers
Connection to local resources.
Maternity Care Coordinators
Coordination of care, referrals.
Support Groups
Lactation support groups with new mothers.
Supplies you may be eligible for:
- Breast pumps
- Nursing bras and pads
- Nipple cream and shields
- Milk storage bags
Breastfeeding benefits both babies and mothers.
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 Suicide has no single cause and no one approach can end it—but prevention is possible, especially when support is found before a crisis happens.
Women Veterans may have unique experiences related to military service, health and wellbeing, or trauma that can increase the risk of suicide. Some also face medical and social issues that affect their relationships and quality of life. Whether it's mental health care or treatment for chronic pain or other health concerns, VA can provide personalized, gender-tailored care to help women Veterans.
Additionally, creating a safety plan now can help give suicidal thoughts time to decrease and become more manageable in a future crisis. A safety plan is a written list of coping strategies and sources of support that at-risk Veterans can use before or during a suicidal crisis. Download the VA Safety Plan app or create one together with your VA health care team.
Visit the VA Women’s Health suicide prevention page for more resources.
VA Safety Plan
Women Veterans should create a safety plan now, by identifying coping strategies and sources of support, to help give suicidal thoughts time to decrease and become more manageable in a future crisis. Learn more.
Download the VA Safety Plan app or create a plan together with your VA health care team.
While the Safety Plan app can be used on its own, creating the plan with a mental health provider can be helpful. The app is not intended to replace professional care.
It is important to create the safety plan when you’re not in distress, so you can think clearly and have time to complete the steps.
The safety plan includes listing six key components:
- Warning signs that you may be headed toward crisis
- Ways you can cope on your own
- Distractions (places to go and people to call)
- Friends and family to call when you need help
- Professionals to call when you’re in a crisis
- Ways to limit access to dangerous objects and keep yourself safe
Once a safety plan is created, you can identify your reasons to live and explore more tools to help you cope.
Veterans Crisis Line
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 Women Veterans: You deserve the best prosthetic and sensory aids designed to fit your lifestyle and your body, based on your unique health care needs.
VA Prosthetic and Sensory Aids Service
The term "prosthetic device" refers to any device that supports or replaces loss of a body part or function. VA offers comprehensive and advanced prosthetic devices, sensory aids, and rehabilitation services. Plus, we know that size and appearance matter. We’re further enhancing options so you can choose items that meet your personal style and body type.
What We Offer
VA provides a wide range of comprehensive services and devices for prosthetic and sensory aids including:
- Orthotic and prosthetic services
- Mobility aids
- Hearing aids or glasses
- Communication and assistive devices
- Recreational and rehab equipment
- Surgical implants
- Automobile adaptive equipment
- Home improvement and structural alterations, such as bathroom modifications
- Clothing allowance
Specific examples of these services and devices include custom limbs, canes, walkers, or wheelchairs, diabetic shoes and orthotic inserts, hearing aids, respiratory equipment, and more. Gender specific examples include, but are not limited to:
- Nursing bras and breast pumps
- Maternity support belts and items
- Post-mastectomy items (including bathing suits)
- Wigs for alopecia or post-chemotherapy
- Long-acting reversible contraceptives (like intrauterine devices)
- Pelvic floor devices
- Vaginal dilators
You may also be eligible for rehabilitation services and treatments, including sports programs, creative arts, and physical therapy, through VA’s Rehabilitation and Prosthetic Services.
Accessing Prosthetic and Sensory Aids Service
To be eligible for VA Prosthetic and Sensory Aids Service, you must be enrolled in VA health care and have a medical need or referral from a provider for a prosthetic service or device. Additional eligibility criteria may apply for certain programs.
Start by speaking with your VA health care team. Once they determine the items or devices that can support your treatment plan, they will connect you to VA Prosthetic and Sensory Aid Service. You can also contact the Women Veterans Program Manager at your nearest VA medical center to discuss your eligibility and options and they can help coordinate your care.
To learn more about what VA can offer, visit the VA Office of Women’s Health Prosthetics page or call 1-855-VA-WOMEN to speak with a real person and get connected to care. You can also visit the VA Prosthetic and Sensory Aids Service page.
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As Mother’s Day has come and gone, the Center for Women Veterans pauses to honor the incredible women who nurture, guide, support, and lead in every season of life.
This includes Veteran moms, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, godmothers, mentors, caregivers, pet moms, and those who may not have given birth but have given love, strength, protection, and wisdom in ways that define what it truly means to mother.
Motherhood is not defined by one title. It is defined by love, sacrifice, patience, leadership, and care.
For many women Veterans, life has required you to carry multiple roles at once. Service member, leader, caregiver, professional, and often the steady foundation for everyone around you. That strength is unmatched, but it can also come with an invisible weight, the feeling that you must always do more, give more, and feel guilty when you take time for yourself.
This Mother’s Day, we offer you this reminder: Self-CARE is not self-ISH. It is necessary.
Taking time to rest, reset, and care for yourself allows you to continue showing up as the best version of you. Whether it is a quiet moment, time with loved ones, a walk, a nap, or simply space to breathe, your well-being matters. You can’t pour from an empty cup.
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 Through your service in the military, you have earned benefits and services through your accomplishments while there. You deserve to access them, whatever that means to you.
Through our Women Veterans Enrollment Initiative, “Boots on the Ground for Boots on the Ground,” we are bringing VA directly to you through regional summits across the country. These in-person events are designed to connect you with the care, resources, and support you have earned and deserve.
We encourage you to attend a summit, bring a Battle Buddy, and take that step for yourselves. Investing in your health, your future, and your well-being is not only important, it is something you owe to yourself.
The first regional summit will be held in the Southwest, at the Henry B. González Convention Center in San Antonio, TX, on Friday, July 24, and Saturday, July 25, 2026.
This two-day event is dedicated to bringing together women Veterans from Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona for enrollment opportunities, networking, empowerment, and valuable VA resources.
If you are living in or traveling through these states - Register Now to Attend.
Stay informed about all of our upcoming regional summits by continuing to read our newsletters and following us on Facebook and X @VAWomenVets. We’ll share the latest information as soon as it becomes available!
To all the women who mother in every form, just like your loved ones do, we see you, we honor you and we celebrate you.
Take the nap. Buy the flowers. Book the massage. Take the trip. Drink the coffee while it is still hot. And please… release the guilt.
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Cheddar Vegetable Surprise
Ingredients
- 3 cups cooked brown rice
- 1 cup thinly diagonally sliced carrots
- 1 cup broccoli florets
- 1 cup coarsely chopped onion
- 1 cup sliced mushrooms
- 1 cup coarsely chopped zucchini
- 1 cup canned diced tomatoes
- 4 ounces low-fat cheddar cheese, coarsely grated
- 1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Spread rice in shallow baking dish. Cover with vegetables. Spread cheese over top, distributing evenly. Pour soy sauce all over and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
Bake for about 45 minutes, or until heated through and cheese is melted.
Serves 6.
Each serving contains about 202 calories, 10 g protein, 4 g fat, 4 mg cholesterol, 33 g carbohydrates, 4 g fiber, and 551 mg sodium.
Honey-Herb Chicken
Ingredients
- 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (about 1 pound)
- Juice of 1 lime (about 2 tablespoons)
- 1 to 2 tablespoons fresh coriander, chopped
- 1 tablespoon honey
Directions
With a meat tenderizer, pound each breast half to about 1/2-inch thick.
Combine lime juice, coriander, and honey in a small bowl. Brush chicken breasts with glaze.
Brush grill lightly with olive oil. Grill (or broil) chicken approximately 5 minutes on each side or until chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165°F. It can be served hot right away or refrigerated for use in sandwiches or salads later.
Serves 4.
Each serving contains about 149 calories, 27 g protein, 1.5 g fat, 69 mg cholesterol, 5 g carbohydrates, less than 1 g fiber, and 79 mg sodium.
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Being physically active helps you manage your health and weight. Regular physical activity strengthens bones and muscles. It can make your heart and lungs stronger and help manage blood sugar. Being active can improve your sleep, mood, and self-esteem. Make moving more throughout the day an important part of an important part of your weight-management plan. |
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Make activity part of your day
Start by finding times during the day when you can add some activity. Every minute of physical activity helps. For example, you might be able to do 5-10 minutes of seated yoga, stretching, strengthening, or go for a short walk or wheel during your lunch break. Plan to meet a friend to do something active after work. You could try using the stairs or a ramp instead of the elevator. Start by taking the stairs or ramp down and then move on to going back up. Park a little bit farther away instead of in the closest parking spot. These little changes can add up and make a big difference.
Begin an aerobic activity plan with short distances or a short amount of time if you are not able to walk or wheel very far. Then gradually add distance or time as you make this activity a part of your and a regular habit.
The benefits of being physically active
There are both immediate and long-term benefits to benefit more active.
Immediate benefits can include:
- Decreased anxiety
- Decreased blood pressure
- Improved sleep quality
- Better mood
Long-term benefits include lower risk of health conditions such as:
- Depression
- Type 2 diabetes
- Heart disease
- High blood pressure
- Obesity
- Stroke
- Different types of cancer
Being physically active may also help you:
- Reduced risk of weight gain, dementia, and falls
- Improved bone health and endurance
- Feeling stronger and more energetic
Make exercise fun
Choose activities that you enjoy. You may even get a friend to join you:
- Take a resistance-training or aerobics class
- Join a team sport
- Take a dance class
- Walk the dog
- Ride a bike or use a hand bike
For more information on weight management
If you are interested in weight management and healthy living, contact your primary care provider or VA health care team. You may also contact your local VA health facility and ask for the MOVE! Program. If you’re not enrolled in VA health care, you can talk to staff at your local VA facility about applying.
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Are you using all the health benefits you have earned?
Only 44% of women Veterans are enrolled in VA health care. If you're a transitioning service woman or recently separated woman Veteran, don't miss the VA Women's Health Reengagement Training (heaRT) Participant Handbook. Learn about the VA benefits and services available to support your health and well-being.
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A majority of women Veterans are not utilizing their earned benefits. As a result, they do not have access to the VA health care system or the low- or no-cost care it offers.
It's never too late to enroll in VA health care services.
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Come to our New Veteran Orientation Held Monthly at Ernest Childers Outpatient Clinic in Tulsa.
Are you new to VA health care? Are you a current VA patient, but want to learn more about what services and benefits VA has to offer and how to obtain them?
Join Us For New Veteran Orientation
When: The 2nd Thursday of every month
Where: Ernest Childers VA Clinic 8921 S. Mingo Rd. Tulsa, OK 74113 2nd floor, Rooms 2008 - 2010 (across from optometry)
Time: 1:00 p.m.
Open to all Veterans, family members, caregivers, and community partners.
- Meet representatives from various departments within the VA
- Learn about the processes for getting things done at the VA
- Learn about and sign up for My HealtheVet
- Question and answer session
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 Check out our back-issues for more Women Veterans resources and popular topics.
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