About the Center
Fifteen years of open doors
Founded in 2011 to support mothers, fathers, and their children, practically and at no cost.
What We Do
Time first, then everything else
St. Gianna Pregnancy Resource Center was founded in 2011 and opened its doors on December 12, 2012. When we needed room to grow, we moved to Sherman Avenue in New Haven. A client's first visit is usually a conversation: a free pregnancy test, and someone who will sit with them for as long as they need without pushing an outcome.
After that it becomes practical: an ultrasound on a mobile van, classes that earn credit toward supplies, referrals for prenatal care and housing, and a boutique stocked with the things a new baby actually needs.
The center was founded to offer hope to mothers, fathers, and their children, born and unborn. Because human life is sacred, we provide life-giving alternatives regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity, and we help parents with their intellectual, physical, and spiritual needs.
The center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and a Catholic organization, named for Gianna Beretta Molla, an Italian pediatrician.
We do not perform or refer for abortion.
The Full List
Everything offered, at no cost
The center has never charged for a service. Not for a test, not for a scan, not for a class, not for a car seat.
Direct support
- Free, confidential pregnancy testing
- Free limited ultrasounds
- Maternity and baby supplies
- Referrals for prenatal and medical care
- Housing, food, and social service referrals
- Adoption information and referrals
Education
- Prenatal development and childbirth
- Breastfeeding and infant care
- Parenting through the toddler years
- Life skills and healthy boundaries
- Budgeting and positive partnerships
- Yale New Haven maternity classes
Free limited ultrasounds
Ultrasounds are performed on our Mobile Ultrasound Van by a certified nurse sonographer, and every scan is read by a medical doctor to confirm a viable intrauterine pregnancy, cardiac activity, and an estimated gestational age.
Depending on how far along the pregnancy is, you may see your baby's arms, legs, and head, or even your baby sucking a thumb.
Earn While You Learn
A curriculum built for moms and dads, and the center's main education program. A parent picks lessons from a library of more than 250 streaming videos, completes the worksheets that go with each one, and earns credit for every lesson finished. That credit is spent in the Children's Boutique on car seats, strollers, diapers, wipes, and clothing.
The lessons are kept current and cover prenatal development, childbirth, caring for a baby in infancy, breastfeeding, raising a toddler, parenting, sexual integrity, life skills, difficult circumstances including abuse, and healthy boundaries. Parents enrolled in the program can also take Yale New Haven maternity classes, in person or online, and receive community referrals for adoption and for post-abortion help.
It works because it isn't charity in one direction. Parents leave with things they earned, with information they'll use for years, and with a relationship that lasts: St. Gianna's stands in the gap for women who find it hard to get help anywhere else.
The Name
Who Gianna Beretta Molla was
Gianna Beretta was born in Italy in 1922. She skied, she climbed mountains, and she earned degrees in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Pavia in 1949, then specialized in Pediatrics at the University of Milan in 1952. She ran her own clinic, with particular attention to mothers, babies, the elderly, and the poor.
During her fourth pregnancy, a tumor developed. Her doctors gave her three options, and she chose the one that carried the most risk to herself and the best odds for her child. Her daughter was born in April 1962. Gianna died a week later of complications, at 39.
The center took her name in 2011 because of how she practiced medicine: patiently, and with the people in front of her.
Support the Work
None of it happens without funding.
The center has no membership fees and bills no one. Donors, volunteers, and local businesses cover the entire operation.