You Don't Have to Wait for a Crisis to Ask for Help Navigating Your Child's Care

By Christy Koraiban RN, BSN, LC | Every Baby Feeds

Nobody hands you a roadmap when you leave the hospital.

For some families, the complexity starts from day one. You came home with a baby who needs extra support — maybe there's a diagnosis, a specialist referral, a follow-up you're not sure how to prepare for. The appointments are already stacking up and nobody has explained what order any of it is supposed to happen in. You're Googling things at midnight, nodding along in appointments, and sorting out the details later.

For others, things were going fine — until they weren't. Your child gets sick. Not with anything complicated or chronic, just sick. But you can't seem to get your concerns addressed, and you find yourself in the ER for the third time because you don't know where else to turn or how to make the system work for you in that moment. Your child is otherwise healthy. You're not overreacting. There's just a gap between what you need and what you know how to ask for.

That gap is exactly what healthcare navigation support is designed for.

And maybe you've been waiting for things to get bad enough before you reach out for help.

I want to talk about that.

The myth of the crisis threshold

Somewhere along the way, a lot of us picked up the idea that we have to be in full crisis mode before we're allowed to ask for extra support. That if things aren't dire, we should just keep managing on our own.

It's a completely understandable instinct. But it leads to frustration — for families and for providers.

Families spend more time in uncertainty than they need to. Providers see patients who have been quietly struggling longer than necessary. And the gap between "I think something is off" and "I finally have a plan" stretches longer than it has to.

Healthcare navigation support exists to close that gap — not just for the families already deep in a complex medical situation, but for the ones earlier in the process who are still trying to figure out where to start.

What navigation support actually looks like

I get asked this a lot: what do you actually do?

Here's the honest answer. It depends on where you are.

Sometimes it means sitting down together and reviewing what's already happened — the appointments, the records, the recommendations — and helping you understand the full picture. Sometimes it means helping you prepare for an upcoming specialist visit so you walk in knowing what to ask and what to listen for. Sometimes it means figuring out why a referral has stalled and what you can do to move it forward. Sometimes it's helping you put language to a concern you've been carrying around but haven't been able to articulate clearly to a provider.

As a nurse and a mom, I've seen what happens when families don't have this kind of support. I've also seen what changes when they do. The appointments get more productive. The next steps get clearer. The weight of "I don't know what to do" gets a little lighter.

Advocacy is a skill — not a personality trait

I want to be clear about something, because I think it matters.

You don't have to be a naturally assertive person to advocate for your child. You don't have to come in already knowing the right words or understanding how the system works. Advocacy is a skill. It's something you learn, build, and practice — and asking for help while you're learning is not a weakness. That's exactly how it's supposed to work.

Part of what I do is help families build that skill alongside the support I provide. So that over time, you feel more equipped — not just in this situation, but in the ones that come after it.

This is what the support pillar of Every Baby Feeds is for

Healthcare Navigation support at Every Baby Feeds is available during pregnancy and early childhood. You don't need a complicated diagnosis to qualify. You don't need to have already tried everything else. You just need to be a family that could use some help figuring out the next step.

If you've been sitting with a question or a concern and wondering whether your situation is "enough" — it is.

You can learn more about Healthcare Navigation support and book a Navigation Evaluation HERE.

— Christine Koraiban, RN BSN LC | Every Baby Feeds | Lactation Support, Education, Healthcare Navigation | North County San Diego