Today we’d like to introduce you to Cordelia Hanna-Cheruiyot.
Please share your story with us.
Wholistic Midwifery School of Southern California was founded in 1993 as an educational venture by a Certified Nurse-Midwife Lorri Walker, Certified Professional Midwife/Licensed Midwife Shelly Girard (both of whom are no longer affiliated with our organization) and Cordelia Hanna, a Childbirth Educator/Birth Activist, Childbirth Companion and Student Midwife.
Wholistic Midwifery School of Southern California’s original intent was to establish a professional direct-entry midwifery training program. In 2011, we established the DBA The Association for Wholistic Maternal and Newborn Health to reflect our evolving work.
Our revised mission includes providing training and professional development of perinatal healthcare providers including community health promoters and other paraprofessionals, and continuing education and networking opportunities for nurses, midwives and physicians and a Community-Based Doula Program focused on the disadvantaged and under-served pregnant women of Los Angeles. We also provide Mother Baby-Centered support and education for expectant and new parents.
In 2010, Cordelia Hanna-Cheruiyot MPH, CHES, ICCE,CLE, CBA, assumed the role of CEO and Executive Director of the organization and oversees all of its programs and initiatives, with the support of consultants, a dedicated team of volunteers and board members.
Cordelia’s training, education and experience as a Homebirth Mother, Direct-Entry Midwife, Birth Activist, Doula, Lactation Educator and Public Health Practitioner give her a broad perspective which enables her to guide the work of the organization.
Cordelia received a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Dance from Indiana University-Bloomington in 1986. She received her Masters in Public Health in Health Education and Promotion/Maternal and Child Health from Loma Linda University in 2008. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in Health Education and Promotion/Global Health at Walden University. She has worked for 27-years in Los Angeles County as a Childbirth Educator, Birth Doula, Postpartum Doula, Lactation Counselor, Midwife and Midwife Assistant and Public Health Educator in private practice, clinic, community birth center and hospital settings. Her decade of experience working for Pasadena Public Health Department Black Infant Health Program solidified her commitment to addressing perinatal health disparities and injustices. Cordelia is a humanitarian, offering her skills in health education/ promotion and community organization in South Los Angeles and, in 2017, to Sierra Leone, West Africa, where Cordelia will actualize a long-held dream to be of service to the Motherland.
We provide staff development training for community perinatal health workers, nurses, and other professionals. We design community-based initiatives, engage and mobilize diverse stakeholders to develop holistically-oriented programs and policies that improve maternal and child health.
In 2013, we received the Advocate Award from the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services for our Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative Consortium which brings together health professionals not normally at the same table to support forward-thinking maternal-health professionals to move the thinking in their organizations towards a mother baby-centered, evidence-based, humanistic model of maternity care.
Providing networking and continuing education opportunities for perinatal professionals: seminars, conferences, webinars, panel discussions, film screenings, etc.
Offering free and low-cost doula, lactation support and childbirth education for disadvantaged, hard-to-reach pregnant women and adolescents.
Offering certification programs in maternity care: Breastfeeding Peer Counselor, Perinatal Support Specialist, Midwife Assistant and Postpartum Doula.
Organizing for Community Empowerment.
Consulting with hospitals and clinics to implement evidence-based, mother and baby-centered, respectful maternity care.
Has it been a smooth road?
Funding, or lack thereof! Changing board.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Wholistic Maternal and Newborn Health story. Tell us more about the business.
We are a community-based 501 (c) (3) non-profit public charity 509 (a) (2) located in Los Angeles, California. We are perinatal professionals joined together with a common vision to promote maternal and infant health, improve maternity care quality, and reduce perinatal health disparities in Los Angeles County and elsewhere.
We also provide childbirth education for expectant parents and doula support and postpartum care for parents-to-be and new parents.
Our board and advisory committee, volunteers and consultants are maternal-child health experts with training and experience in family medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, maternal mental health, perinatal psychology, maternity and newborn nursing, midwifery, lactation support, public health, health promotion, doula support and childbirth education. We also sponsor networking and training opportunities for maternity care professionals, including our annual Mother-Friendly Childbirth Symposium, The Birthing Justice Forum, Annual Maternal-Child Health Advocate Awards Recognition, and seminars to support perinatal professional collaboration and continuing education. As catalysts and champions of mother baby-centered, holistic, respectful care, we aim to improve birth outcomes for disadvantaged mothers and infants.
The Struggle Ought Not to Deter Us from the Support of a Cause We Believe to Be Just
OUR MISSION:
To increase access, awareness and availability of Mother Baby-Friendly Maternity Care.
We are also committed to social justice in birth.
The Association of Wholistic Maternal and Newborn Health focuses on the intersection of public health and midwifery to address healthcare disparities and to engender a more equitable maternity care system for all women and infants. Our focus areas are:
Education for Birth Preparation and Cultural Change.
Advocacy for Maternal-Infant Health Care Policy Reform.
Expanding Access to Mother Baby-Friendly Maternity Care.
Working for Social Justice in Maternal and Infant Health.
OUR PHILOSOPHY
As advocates for mothers and babies, we seek to ensure that each mother is treated with dignity and respect during her pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum periods.
We promote a self-growth approach to pregnancy; which is a special and unique time in a woman’s life.
We believe each pregnant woman should be surrounded by a loving and supportive community and each baby should be born into the hands of skilled, compassionate and respectful caregivers.
We protect the Mother Baby dad whose needs are mutually dependent.
We are reverent of the sacred nature of birth, and are inspired by its potential to transform women, relationships, families and communities.
Our intent is to mobilize the perinatal community to implement culturally appropriate wholistic approaches to perinatal health with the goal to improve outcomes and quality of maternity care in all settings: clinics, hospitals, birth centers and domiciliary settings.
We are dedicated to helping families have empowering, satisfying and joyous experiences from conception through gestation, childbearing, breastfeeding and early parenthood.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Hopefully more natural approaches to childbirth will be accepted Doulas paid for by Medi-Caid.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://motherbabysupport.net
- Phone: 626-388-2191
- Email: [email protected]
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wholisticmaternalnewbornhealth
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-association-for-wholistic-maternal-and-newborn-health-los-angeles
- Other: https://www.guidestar.org/profile?id=95-4451418
An African American couple delivers their newborn baby in a pool of water at home during a homebirth with help from their midwife.
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
