With women, for a lifetimeTM Commendation
Holy Family Services-Birth Center
This is the 19th year for Holy Family Services--Birth Center in Weslaco, Texas, located on the Mexican Border in the Rio Grande Valley. The staff CNMs, Sister Angela Murdaugh*, Diana Caplan, Susan Hanafin, and Janet Sedullo, all belong to the ACNM. Our 20th year starts Sept. 14.
The unique and innovative programs we have are:
A pregnant adolescent program called PALOMA (standing for: Pregnant Adolescent Life Opportunity in Mothering Advocacy) that uses the Pregnancy Centering Group Prenatal care model, conducted totally in Spanish.
The birth center has had a clinical fellowship for CNMs since its inception.
The birth center has been a site for student nurse-midwives from various programs. From 1992-1995, we worked in conjunction with other nurse-midwifery services in the Rio Grande Valley in an off-campus program with Baylor's Nurse-Midwifery Program in order to provide nurse-midwifery education to three local nurses who have remained in practice in this area.
The Holy Family nurse-midwives are trained by the Texas State Dept. of Health in order to provide Texas Health Steps well-baby care for our babies through one year of age.
We had the first doula-training program in the Rio Grande Valley,
We do the most deliveries of any freestanding birth center in the State of Texas.
We conduct childbirth classes in Spanish open to anyone.
Every mother and baby delivered at the center has postpartum home visits on the 3rd and 10th day after birth.
In the last two years Holy Family has offered water births when desired.
The service has expanded care by serving a 90% impoverished population through provision of transportation services to and from care, a program of volunteering when a family is too poor to pay with money, home visits and Medicaid case management for eligible mothers and babies.
The "Heart of Midwifery" has been evident in the pureness of midwifery practice that was instituted and maintain for the entire history of the birth center. There are consultant obstetricians and pediatricians but there has never been an MD on staff. The midwifery model, not the medical model, of care is practiced at this site. I think the testimonies of who we fondly call our Holy Family Alumni, including 38 students over the span of 19 years, would attest to their unique opportunities to be in an atmosphere that allowed for the full expression of the art, as well as the science, of nurse-midwifery.
* Sr. Angela Murdaugh, who founded the birth center in 1972, was inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame in 2002. She was selected in recognition of her leadership to remove barriers to midwifery practice, her efforts to create regulations for birth centers in Texas, and her innovative service to the impoverished families in the border region.
