A maternity home based in Georgia empowers pregnant women and new mothers through safe housing, practical resources, and holistic care—meeting the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of women facing unplanned pregnancies or challenging circumstances.
Auntie Angies was founded in Albany by Angela Stanton-King. Angela gave birth while in prison, chained to a bed, with a male sheriff watching her the entire time. When she was released from prison, she had no help transitioning back to normal society — she had no job or place to live lined up.
Now, she wants to help women in a way she was never supported. Auntie Angies opened in late 2024 in Albany, GA, providing a safe place for pregnant women or women with infants to live. This maternity home partners with other pregnancy help centers and community resources to provide education, job and skills training, help finding permanent housing, and more for the women living there.
According to their mission statement, “Auntie Angie's House is commited [sic] to addressing the Maternal Health Crisis by empowering pregnant women in need or facing challenges.” The maternity home offers a “secure home with wholesome meals,” transportation help for residents, mentorship and coaching, and a multitude of education and training services, as well as essential items for mom and baby.
One way the maternity home is empowering pregnant women and providing wholesome meals is through a new addition — an on-site garden to enrich the family-style meals made there. Pregnant women have to grow a whole other human, and that requires special nutritional intake to keep both mom and baby healthy throughout the pregnancy. So far, the garden provides peaches, parsley, and cilantro.
Tweet This:Auntie Angie's House nurtures their clients' bodies and minds through a new community garden.
The Physical Health Benefits
Peaches are a great source of several vitamins and minerals as well as fiber. The fiber not only helps with digestion, but also with helping blood sugar and cholesterol stay in healthy ranges. As noted in Medical News Today, “Eating more dietary fiber during pregnancy can lower the risk of glucose intolerance and preeclampsia, achieve a healthy gestational weight, and prevent constipation.” Peaches also contain Vitamin C, beta carotene (which gets turned into Vitamin A), and potassium. Vitamin C is well known for helping boost the immune system, which can keep mom healthier during pregnancy. Beta carotene and Vitamin A are necessary for good skin and eye health, and potassium is essential for the health of every cell in your body. Potassium helps muscles (including the heart), nerves, and organs (like the kidneys) function as they should. This can help lower the risk for high blood pressure and stroke! Additionally, potassium is not something your body can synthesize.
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And peaches have other, lesser-known benefits, as well. Tea or extracts from peach flowers can help with skin health above and beyond just the vitamin A content in the fruit. Peaches also contain probiotics that can help lower inflammation throughout the body, and lots of antioxidants that help fight cell damage and boost the immune system. Being able to eat fresh peaches is a great way to get essential nutrients and round out a healthy diet when pregnant.
Parsley provides iron, folate (aka Vitamin B9), and Vitamin K, as well as other minerals and vitamins important to a pregnant woman. Vitamin K, together with calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus, are all essential to bone health and are all contained in parsley. During pregnancy, it is essential that a woman receives enough calcium and bone-health-promoting vitamins and minerals so her body does not leach the calcium from her bones in order to help the baby grow. Folate is necessary for a baby in utero to grow a fully functioning neural tube. Additionally, parsley is rich in a wide variety of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory chemicals that can significantly contribute to health. And finally, parsley is a great source of iron, which helps prevent anemia, a condition more than 10% of North American women experience when pregnant.
Cilantro, like parsley, is another leafy green herb. It contains a wide variety of vitamins and minerals, such as Vitamin K, Vitamin C, folate (aka Vitamin B9), potassium, magnesium, calcium, phosphorus, iron, copper, zinc, and selenium. Cilantro can help lower blood sugar and anxiety, as well as being anti-bacterial.
Together, these leafy green herbs and fresh fruit can help round out a healthy diet or supplement an already healthy diet for pregnant women, ensuring they and their babies get the nutrients they need to stay healthy and grow strongly.
Other Benefits of Gardening
Besides the fruit of the garden being healthy, the act of gardening is also incredibly healthy!
Just being exposed to green spaces and a variety of plants is good for mental health. Several studies show that greenery, plants, and gardens can lower anxiety, depression, and stress as well as promote mental clarity and physical healing! “Why does gardening seem to be so beneficial to health? It combines physical activity with social interaction and exposure to nature and sunlight.”
A community garden, therefore, helps fulfill the mission statement of Auntie Angies, empowering women to be healthier in body, in mind, and in relationship with others.
Speaking from a personal standpoint, I can assure readers that gardening is good for the mind and body. This year was my first year growing anything but flowers. There is a deep sense of pride and satisfaction that comes from working the soil, planting the seeds, weeding the garden, and then seeing the corn and cucumbers and radishes grow, and being able to eat the fruit of your labor. My time outside is a great way for me to talk to my neighbors, and I even met 2 new neighbors this year just by being present and working outside in my garden. My time outside is also a great time for me to contemplate, pray, and praise. Being in God’s creation and participating in one of God’s first purposes for humans — tending to and cultivating the garden he placed them in — is a great way to connect to my Creator while engaging in a form of creation myself.
Part of a Positive Trend
The opening of Auntie Angies is part of a larger trend in maternity housing in America, which is on the rise post-Dobbs.
According to the Maternity Housing Coalition’s most recent impact report, there are now nearly 500 maternity homes in the U.S.
Additionally, Valerie Harkins, director of the Maternity Housing Coalition, notes that “Many of these homes are providing holistic care to the woman in need with specialized services in areas of urgent need,” which is exactly what Auntie Angies is doing by providing a safe place to women in Georgia with services and benefits addressing the whole person.
Helping pregnant women with the real, practical, everyday needs they experience is just par for the course for those of us in the pro-life movement. As long as pregnant women exist, the need for pregnancy help centers and maternity homes will exist. I hope to see Auntie Angies serve many women and their children for years into the future.
