Women and Children

Comadronas in Hartford Nurture Healthier Pregnancies; Build Stronger Families

In Spanish, comadrona means “midwife.’’
        
      
The Comadrona/Healthy Start Program at the Hispanic Health Council uses trained community health workers to promote positive pregnancy outcomes and better maternal and infant health.
    
The culturally tailored program seeks to rebuild the social support networks that migrants and immigrants from Puerto Rico and Latin America frequently leave behind after moving to an urban area like Hartford.

The needs of everyday living can keep women from focusing on the intricacies of a healthy pregnancy, labor and delivery, says Grace Damio, the program director. “If you go into a person’s house and there’s a gas leak or rats, the person’s mind is not going to be on what you’re there to tell them [about prenatal care]." 
        
Comadrona/Healthy Start, run under the Center for Women and Children’s Health, grew out of a documented community need and has been scientifically tested so we know it works.
          
A recent study of the state’s Healthy Start Program, which includes Comadrona/Healthy Start, found that:

• Participants give birth to infants with high birth weights.
• “Women in the program have a decreased propensity to give birth to preterm infants.’’
• Each dollar spent on Healthy Start yields a $2.20 return to the state of Connecticut.

To read the full report click here

Home Visits
Comadrona/Healthy Start was established in 1983 in response to the alarmingly high infant mortality rate and late entry into prenatal care of women within the rapidly growing Puerto Rican neighborhoods of Hartford.

The program, funded by the Connecticut Department of Social Services, the United Way and Hartford Hospital, has served almost 5,000 families (an average of 255 a year). Trained community workers, the comadronas, make monthly home visits or see clients in the council's community-based offices. The services they provide vary widely depending on the client's needs. The comadronas can help clients find health insurance, pre-natal care, housing, even a baby crib. They will also assist clients with applications for WIC and other supplemental nutrition programs, or provide staples from the council's emergency food pantry.

One Woman's Story

When Carmen, a Hartford woman in her 40s, found out that her unborn daughter had Down syndrome she was frightened by the prospect of bearing a child with a disability she didn't understand and depressed in large part because her husband said it was all her fault.

Comadrona/Healthy Start became involved and her case was assigned to Maria Serrano, a veteran comadrona who has been with the Hispanic Health Council for more than two decades.

Carmen spoke no English and had no health insurance. Serrano enlisted the help of a social work intern at the Hispanic Health Council who, like Carmen, was from Mexico. The intern volunteered to counsel Carmen.

Serrano found an English-language video about living with Down syndrome and translated as Carmen watched it. Then, she introduced Carmen to an acquaintance whose own daughter has Down syndrome. That mother guided Carmen as she applied for disability support and early intervention services. Serrano also explained Down syndrome to the baby's father and told him that it was no one's fault. That gesture helped repair the couple’s relationship.

Now that her child is growing up, Carmen gives back by packing up the outgrown clothing, toys and bedding from her three older children and donating them to the Hispanic Health Council for other families in need.