The Parade of Nations marked the official start of the 55th annual Heartbeat International Pregnancy Help Conference March 25, followed by moving remote message from an affiliate in Israel, and a heartfelt look at pregnancy help in Italy over the last 50 years.
Each year the Parade of Nations touches hearts at the pregnancy help conference as flags from each of the nations represented on the affiliation roster are paraded to the event stage. International affiliates who are present at the Conference carry the flag from their country, and volunteers carry the remaining countries’ flags. It is a poignant reminder of the international nature of both Heartbeat and the pregnancy help movement.
Heartbeat International is the largest network of pregnancy help organizations in the U.S. and the world. Its Conference is the premier gathering in the pregnancy help community.
Heartbeat recently topped 4,000 affiliates in 102 countries.
This year there were representatives from 14 countries present at the 2026 Conference. They were Australia, Canada, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Mexico, North Macedonia, Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Uganda, Ukraine, and Zambia.
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Sandy Shoshani with Be'ad Chaim (Hebrew for “Pro-Life”) in Israel, sent a video message to the Conference in lieu of appearing in person. Shoshani was scheduled to speak but unable to attend after her flight from Israel was cancelled due to the unrest there.
Since the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel Be'ad Chaim has opened five new pregnancy centers, now numbering nine, and helped 800-1,000 women a month. Be'ad Chaim has also helped women displaced from their homes following the June 2025 Twelve-Day War.
Shoshani discussed the challenges, including regular runs to bomb shelters with children in tow, of serving women and their children in the Tel Aviv area during the current war with Iran.
“We don’t always know their situation, but we know it’s a very difficult situation,” Shoshani said.
“And so, beyond the missiles we ask you, just urge you, to continue to pray for us, for safety, for encouragement for women who are in crisis pregnancy to say, ‘I will continue my pregnancy, I will give birth to my children despite the situation here in Israel.’”
Marina Casini, president of the Movimento per la Vita (MPV), presented on the power of love and pregnancy help centers related to MPV’s celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2025. Casini succeeds her father as president of MPV, the late Carlo Casini, founder of the Italian pro-life movement.
“Every human life, from the moment of conception, is a word of love from God and a call to love,” Casini told the Heartbeat Conference.
“When faced with a difficult or unexpected pregnancy, it is not enough to repeat that a child is a child, that a human being is always a person,” Casini said. “Society must respond as it does when someone is in danger – with love – reaching the mind and heart of the mother, upon whom the life of the child ultimately depends.”
Tweet This: Society must respond to women in unplanned pregnancy as it does when someone's in danger-with love–reaching the mind and heart of the mother
All this is embodied in the history and work of the pregnancy help movement in Italy over the past 50 years, she said, citing stats from MPV, the largest pregnancy help network outside the U.S., including 307 pregnancy help centers, 67 maternity homes, and services such as the Italian version of Option Line, service SOS Vita.
The Italian pregnancy help movement has supported one million women and helped 280,000 children to be born in Italy, 6,910 in the past year alone, Casini said.
Pregnancy help centers are not only assistance and service, she said, “they are also a challenge to a culture of death, a sign of hope that life and love will prevail over death and oppression.”
Celebrating 50 years of pregnancy help centers in Italy has meant “entering into a history made of concrete good—quiet, often hidden, yet deeply impactful,” said Casini.
“Fifty years of love, life, hope, and truth,” she said. “Fifty years in which one certainty has become clear: love is a force capable of changing situations, decisions, and destinies. It is what we have seen happen, day after day.”
The Heartbeat International Annual Pregnancy Help Conference continues through March 27.
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
