B4 Babies and Intermountain Health St. Mary's Regional Hospital have collaborated to help families throughout pregnancy and early childhood.

(PRUnderground) April 17th, 2026

A collaboration between Intermountain Health St. Mary’s Regional Hospital and Hilltop Community Resources has helped thousands of families in Mesa County, Colo. get the support they need for a healthy pregnancy and start to parenthood for more than three decades.

The B4 Babies and Beyond program began four decades ago to help pregnant women access prenatal care, education, and resources during a critical time for both mother and baby.

“The collaboration with B4 Babies and St. Mary’s began in 1989,” said Victoria Grasmick, who works in Community Health at St. Mary’s Regional Hospital. “It gets families off to the right start from the get-go, which then gives them a higher likelihood of success throughout life.”

When the program was created, Mesa County was seeing an increase in the lack of access to health insurance and as a result expectant mothers were not getting prenatal care.

“We had a lot of women that were coming to the emergency department in pre-term labor, mostly because they didn’t have access to the resources they needed,” said Bryan Johnson, market president for Intermountain Health in Western Colorado.

“There was a lack of access to doctors delivering babies, especially for individuals on Medicaid, and many didn’t have transportation to get to doctor’s appointments. As a result, they had zero prenatal care, no doctor, no information, and no education,” said Mike Stahl, CEO of Hilltop Community Resources.

This was 30 years before the Affordable Care Act, and the Mesa County Prenatal Task Force was finding the major barrier for these women was access to health insurance.

“The lack of access to Medicaid was a significant issue,” Stahl explained. “So, when B4 Babies started, it was really set up as a presumptive eligibility site where any pregnant mom could then be deemed on Medicaid.”

The data was tracked, and the results were quickly seen in the area’s community health data.

“Two years after B4 Babies began, the data was showing our low-birth-weight rates significantly decreased, to the point where a lot of the professionals were like, ‘what’s going on here?’ And the only thing they could attribute it to was the advent of B4 Babies,” Stahl said.

Over the years, the program has expanded beyond simply helping mothers obtain medical coverage. Today it provides a wide range of services designed to support families throughout pregnancy and early childhood.

“We provide an array of services for prenatal and postnatal families, including accessing affordable health care, transportation to and from appointments, interpretation services, we provide diapers, and car seat checks so that their little one is safe during transportation,” said Karen Clymer, Early Childhood Program manager at Hilltop Community Resources.

The program now serves roughly 250 to 300 individuals each year, which adds up to about 500 to 900 appointments every month helping families access healthcare, education, and community support. And still, 37 years later, the collaboration between St. Mary’s and Hilltop plays a critical role in sustaining those services.

“St. Mary’s has always been a great stakeholder,” Stahl said. “They’ve been an annual supporter of our financial model for years.”

According to leaders with St. Mary’s and Hilltop, the collaboration goes well beyond financial support.

“It’s what we call clinical integration. It’s sharing information, looking for resources, and helping people get in to see doctors when they need to,” Johnson explained.

And the vital collaboration also helps with response to emerging healthcare needs in the region.

“St. Mary’s is really great about identifying different needs in our community, and our community includes the entire Western Slope,” Clymer said. “Recently, when the labor and delivery unit in Delta shut down, St. Mary’s collaborated with us to provide B4 Babies services in Delta County as well as Montrose County.”

For families, the impact can be life changing. Noemi, a B4 Babies client, first connected with the program when she found out she was pregnant as a teenager.

“When I saw a positive pregnancy test, I instantly went into shock,” she said. “I didn’t know anything.”

After reaching out to B4 Babies, she began receiving guidance and support.

“They helped me with getting health insurance and getting back on my feet,” she said.

Through regular meetings with a family navigator, she built a trusted relationship that eventually helped her navigate two pregnancies and parent her two sons.

“Just meeting every month with my navigator is so helpful. She feels like family to us,” Noemi said. “My kids have a great connection with her, and I have a great connection with her.”

Community leaders say stories like that from Noemi illustrate the program’s long-term impact.

“When we think of Intermountain’s mission, what we’re trying to do is help our community live their healthiest life possible,” Johnson said.

Clymer added, “I get to see the families that we serve out in our community every day. They’re happy, they’re healthy, and it really is making a difference in their lives.”

B4 Babies is one of several community programs St. Mary’s supports through its annual community benefit work. In 2024, St. Mary’s invested $86.8 million to strengthen the health of Western Colorado, directing these dollars through a thoughtful, data‑driven Community Health Needs Assessment process that ensures resources go where they can make the biggest difference for families. This commitment reflects the organization’s mission to help people live the healthiest lives possible and the promise to stand with the local communities, especially those who need support most. Learn more about St. Mary’s community benefit work here.

About Intermountain Health

Headquartered in Utah with locations in six states and additional operations across the western U.S., Intermountain Health is a nonprofit system of 34 hospitals, approximately 400 clinics, medical groups with some 4,600 employed physicians and advanced care providers, a nonprofit health plan called Select Health with more than one million members, and other health services. Helping people live the healthiest lives possible, Intermountain is committed to improving community health and is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare by using evidence-based best practices to consistently deliver high-quality outcomes at sustainable costs. For up-to-date information and announcements, please see the Intermountain Health newsroom at https://news.intermountainhealth.org/. For more information, see intermountainhealth.org/ or call 801-442-2000.

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Original Press Release.