Healthy Birth Ambassadors
Healthy Birth Ambassadors (HBAs)are Perinatal Community Health Workers (PCHWs) who live and work in the same community. HBAs understand that how we give birth directly impacts how we parent and how we show up in life and in society. HBAs have a desire to make birth better for the families in their communities. Through an extensive training curriculum designed by Sista Midwife Productions (SMP) in partnership with other perinatal education agencies. Louisiana HBAs are provided with the training, information and support to become :
Certified Doulas | Child Birth Educators | Certificate Breastfeeding Specialist | Community Health Workers
Research shows that Perinatal Community Health Workers (PCHWs) can decrease the incidence of preterm birth and low birth weight, increase the duration of breastfeeding, and decrease the numbers of cesarean sections. All of these are leading causes of perinatal disparities. Across the country, there are models that demonstrate the effectiveness of PCHWs to improve outcomes and eliminate disparities. We believe, that by providing Louisiana’s communities access to PCHWs we can offer a high impact intervention targeting the health indicators that drive disparities.
Project Goals
Our Goal is to train a cohort of Health Birth Ambassadors for all nine of the Louisiana Department of Health's regions. The cohorts will work collectively to improve birth outcomes and within these cohorts we specifically aim to:
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Increase the numbers of individuals trained to support families during pregnancy, birth and the postpartum period.
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Decrease the number of families reporting poor birth experiences
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Improve breastfeeding rates.
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Increase awareness of birthing options among childbearing families
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Decrease infant mortality and low birth weight
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Decrease cesarean section rates improve Louisiana's national ranking for maternal and infant health
We thank you for your support as your donation will allow us to continue to reach our goal of training HBAs for the entire state of LA.