Photograph by Stu Rosner
The ambulance rolls onto a treeless street in Boston, stopping at a triple-decker across from a defunct bar and an asphalt lot. The medical team greets Crystal, exiting the house with her son in a baby carrier, and helps them inside the tight, cozy space. It’s Jasiah’s four-month exam, and because Crystal has missed several appointments, physician Eileen Costello ’80, chief of ambulatory pediatrics at Boston Medical Center (BMC), has come to her. Crystal is part of SOFAR (Supporting Our Families through Addiction and Recovery), a multidisciplinary treatment program Costello and her team created in 2017 to pick up where intensive ob-gyn care ends. “For the vast majority of our moms,” she says, “getting pregnant was a catalyst for recovery, so when we meet them, most are in their first year, which is an extremely high-risk time for relapse.”