Middle and high school students attending three Omaha, Nebraska-area Catholic schools will learn about fetal development this school year recently began, thanks to a new program from Heart of a Child Ministries.
Heart of a Child Ministries began in 2012 as a ministry selling homemade pillow with life-affirming messages to funds money for pregnancy help organizations. The ministry was prompted by call to defend for unborn babies came to the heart of founder Nikki Schaefer's then seven-year-old daughter, Grace, on the Roe v. Wade anniversary. During the past 13 years, Heart of a Child Ministries expanded into an education program, using presenters and live ultrasounds with volunteer pregnant women and professional nurses for science-based education for middle and high school students. Age-appropriate discussions and activities are used in programs for lower grades.
Schaefer and her team have reached more than 30,000 youth in Nebraska and beyond, including Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, California, South Dakota, and Illinois. The group developed a Certification Education Program to train other groups, bringing the program also to Alabama through a pregnancy center in that state and to Idaho via Choose Life Idaho and the Diocese of Boise.
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Piloting a new program
A new life-affirming education program began this school year thanks to a partnership with the Archdiocese of Omaha.
“A priest approached us with an idea,” Schaefer told Pregnancy Help News. “There are nine months in a pregnancy and nine months in the school year. This is a fetal development-focused, teacher-led program.”
A set of nine posters highlights the development of a baby in the womb, from the first month of pregnancy until the ninth month. Each month, the teacher, whether as part of a biology class, a health class, a science class, or something similar, will focus on the unborn child’s development during that particular month. At the end of the school year, all nine posters will hang in that classroom and Schaefer and her team will visit the school and conduct a presentation, including a live ultrasound, which is the program they have brought to schools for the past few years.
This new education program, known currently as the Fetal Development Poster Project, is being piloted in three Catholic schools in Omaha, Schaefer said.
“It is a combination of posters each month and a PowerPoint presentation,” she said. “The teacher would introduce the posters through the PowerPoint that has information that is very easy for students to pick up [and] we have great supplemental videos. We have this great video that shows babies reacting to music while in the womb that’s done through ultrasound.”
Each poster references the source for the fetal development information used for the various months, including the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, and the Charlotte Lozier Institute.
“It’s sharing facts, but we also have these extraordinary resources that bring these facts to life,” Schaefer said. “The Knights of Columbus funded the development of this program.”
She and her staff created the Poster Project during the summer, and they are collaborating with teachers currently using it to learn what else might be needed.
“We’re working with the schools to accumulate some data, what’s working, what’s not working, what more might be needed,” she said. “We’re excited!”
The impact, increased knowledge and student reactions, are also important, Schaefer added.
For example, in the current Celebration of Life program, Schaefer and her team see a 56 percent conversation rate in youth who identify as pro-abortion or not fully pro-life, and a 100 percent learning rate in which all students say they learned something new from the presentation.
Tweet This: A new life-affirming education program began this school year in the Omaha area.
Program launch at 2026 Heartbeat Conference
Schaefer told Pregnancy Help News the new education program being piloted in Omaha this school year will publicly launch during the 2026 Heartbeat International Conference.
“This is a great program for centers, to put up these posters if they want,” she said.
The pregnancy help organization in Alabama with which Schaefer is working with and that is certified for the Celebration of Life program has “an educational room in their building, and they bring students there,” Schaefer said.
“Centers would also use this program with their clients,” she added.
The Heartbeat Conference is scheduled for March 25 – 27 in Cincinnati, Ohio. However, she encouraged centers that might be interested in the poster and PowerPoint presentation to “reach out to us now.” Center staff can use the contact page on the organization’s website to reach Schaefer and her staff. Centers that reach out to Heart of a Child Ministries prior to Conference will be entered into a drawing for 50 percent off the cost, and a name will be drawn during Conference, she said.
Importance of fetal development knowledge
The poster and PowerPoint program can be done with students attending public schools as well as faith-based schools, said Schaefer. Scriptures are part of the program for religious schools but are not in the public-school program, she said.
“Some states are mandating fetal development education in the public schools,” Schaefer said.
Iowa’s governor signed such legislation earlier this year. Kansas implemented a similar law.
“Nebraska will hopefully be one of the next ones, [and] we are meeting with [state] senators this year, and we are letting them know about our program so that they can see this is a viable program for public schools,” Schaefer said.
Assessing students’ knowledge about fetal development is part of the program as well, with a pre-test given to the students each month and a post-test at the end of the month.
“We want to know, are they walking away with new knowledge about the pre-born person?” Schaefer said.
A survey for teachers has also been developed and will be used with those piloting the program this year, she said.
“If kids know this is a life based on our program or other programs that are going in and teaching very good science-based information that is true and real and kids can think, ‘That’s a real human being …’” Schaefer said. “If they’re receiving that information then that’s going to help them make better-equipped decisions about sex, sexuality, and human life for themselves and for their peers.”
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
