Nadine Long

Nadine Long was offered a new job when she was pregnant with her first child. “I want to be up front with you,” she said. “I’m expecting, and will have to take time off. I don’t know what that looks like, but I am going to be gone for a while. They said, ‘OK, that’s great, we’ll figure this out together.’

Some staff worked remotely, coming in on an as-needed basis. Long asked if, following her three-month, reduced-pay leave, she also could work at home part-time. “I was told ‘no,’ she said. They attributed the decision to complications related to insurance requirements. “It didn’t feel like a very satisfactory answer.” 

Today, Long and her spouse, Matt, have two daughters. Following 17 years of work in local government, non-profit, academic and philanthropic environments, Long is now a self-employed consultant for non-profits. She was born and raised in Wichita and cares deeply about the place where she lives, focusing her work, time and effort on Wichita and Kansas.

“My passion for Kansas is what has led me to focus on this area,” she said. Her father and grandfather were entrepreneurs who, along with her uncle, founded Sauerwein Construction.  Firehouses, schools and the penguin exhibit at the Sedgwick County Zoo were among their projects, and she said she likes honoring that entrepreneurial spirit “in a way that makes me fulfilled but also offers the flexibility to care for my family.”

When she was home with her first child, Long was physically fine. “Emotionally, I could have used a little help, but I didn’t seek it,” she said. “If I had to go back and do it again, I’d tell that gal to talk to her doctor about how she was feeling.”

Mentally, she knew that other symptoms had logical causes — “my hormones were losing their minds” — but she still struggled with doubts about her ability to be a mom. “I used the word ‘should’ a lot. I’m home all day, why am I not able to get things done? Clean the house, have a meal on the table at dinner time? I could not make that happen.” 

The messages she received from her organization felt conflicting. When she had been negotiating for maternity leave, leadership told her they wanted her to be successful, “but weren’t willing to go to bat for me.” One colleague had said to her, “I don’t even know why you’re wanting time off. It’s not like you’re having heart surgery.”

“The most normal, healthy pregnancy is still hard. Just because women are able to pull it off every day doesn’t mean it’s easy to do; it just means women are bad asses.”

Long wished that elected representatives and policymakers understood that women “are a critical part of a thriving society, our economy. We do a disservice to a significant portion of our population with the way we’re treating pregnancy right now, which is as an inconvenience. Moms and babies deserve to have the space they need to get born and start building a life together so they can do their best. And then everybody wins.”

But, she said, “Our system isn’t set up for our success. Some parents are in a position of having to leave their baby to go back to work at four weeks old, or less. Somebody once said that you can judge a society by how it treats its most vulnerable. And by that standard, we’re not doing great.”

Kansas ranks in the middle of the nation’s level of infant mortality rates, at 5.3 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, according to a 2023 CDC survey. Sedgwick County also falls in the middle range of infant mortality rates among Kansas counties, at 6.9 deaths per 1,000 live births from 2018 to 2022, according to the Institute for Policy & Social Research at the University of Kansas.

“Pregnancy can be a life-threatening condition, especially in this country,” Long said. “Our infant mortality rates are not good here, and that’s been a problem for a very long time. Especially for moms of color.” If she could pick only one thing to fix around childbirth, “it would be the disparity we see between white babies and babies of color. It is wild to me that we live in a country where we’re okay that Black babies die at twice the rate of white babies.”

Long points to small wins for Kansas mothers: last year, aided by the advocacy work of the Kansas Birth Justice Society, United Health Ministry Fund and others, Medicaid began covering the services of doulas. Kansas Birth Justice Society also partners with the Paid Leave for Working Kansans coalition and the development of the Kansas Momnibus, a policy package designed to improve maternal health outcomes and address systemic disparities in care.

But overall, “I am disappointed with the progress, or lack thereof.” Long’s extended family lives in Germany, “and they can get more than a year of parental leave. So I always think about it in that context. My sister-in-law also got some flexibility and time off for caring for her elderly parents. As a nation, we’ve got a long way to go in terms of taking better care of our health and babies.”

To mothers, Long advised, “Give yourself all the grace and time you need. You might not feel like yourself for a while, and that’s OK. Don’t rush it. In retrospect, I would have advocated more for myself. To the extent that you can, be brave, ask for what you need. Because sometimes, people are OK with it; what you ask for is not the big deal you make in your head.”

She urged all Kansans to think more about their “spheres of influence” regarding better policies for moms and babies. For example, a volunteer could point out a policy at another organization that could be adapted to theirs. Or perhaps a neighbor is a boss and could be encouraged to look into their company’s paid leave policy.

“Sometimes I think we underestimate our individual power to advocate for things,” she said. “I encourage people to do things like testifying with the legislature if they have the experience and the ability to do that, but small ways can add up too.” 

Long encourages these and other civic actions like contacting legislators, voting and supporting organizations like the Kansas Birth Justice Society. But she encourages pressing the private sector as well. “I would love to see private employees encourage their supervisors to say, ‘You know what? We are going to let our employees have a year off when they have a baby. It’s complicated, but we can figure it out.’ I think they can play a role in this, too.”

“I’d love to see more of us engaged on this issue, because everybody wins when our babies do better. And they’re all our babies.”

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