Some women may need temporary assistance with making arrangements for family caregiving. Others may simply need someone to share their overwhelming sense of personal responsibility for preventing preterm birth. This study also explored the assumptions made by health care workers about the availability of family supports and resources for these women. The researcher found that knowledge of the support women need to do their work does not enter into institutional work processes in any sustained way. Rather, the needs of women and their families were subordinated to institutional priorities and biomedical discourses as they are practiced by nurses and other health care providers.