Maternal and Child Health
Our Maternal and Child Health (MCH) division works to improve maternal and infant mortality and morbidity through community engagement, advocacy, policy change, and meaningful collaborations. We build upon the lived experiences of mothers, birthing people, and their families to bring awareness of maternal health to the general public and equip them with information to engage in advocacy for themselves and their communities. We also partner with government, health systems, funders, insurance and community-based organizations to reduce systemic and individual inequity.
Check out “My Body. My Voice. My Birth,” a qualitative research study that assesses the maternal health landscape in New Orleans as experienced by mothers and prenatal providers!
TrainingGrounds
In 2025, IWES supported TrainingGround’s Perinatal, Parenting, and Workforce Community Collaborative Initiative (CCI) through comprehensive evaluation and documentation services, which captured the initiative’s six-month collaborative design process and led to action-based recommendations. This pilot program was designed to unite a fragmented service ecosystem and align perinatal care, parenting support, and workforce development systems into a family-centered model for young families in the Greater New Orleans area. Through analysis of interviews, observations, and meetings, we were able to identify key strengths, suggest modifications, and discover important lessons, such as the importance of centering parent voices, mitigating power dynamics, and building trust across sectors of perinatal care. By combining evaluation with media and storytelling documentation, we were able to assist TrainingGrounds in demonstrating the impact of their collaborative process and refine CCI’s community- sourced model for change. Due to the success of the pilot, TrainingGrounds has taken the lessons learned and developed a new initiative called FAM First. To learn more about FAM First, follow this link.
To learn more about this process, follow this link to view our interactive report
PARTNERSHIPS
Collaboration is at the heart of our work. As engaged stakeholders with the New Orleans Maternal and Child Health Coalition (NOLA MCHC), we work hard to promote and expand membership throughout the state of Louisiana, and we actively support efforts to bring MCH- related research to the broader community and to reinforce connections across the perinatal workforce. Through this work, we have deepened our partnerships with Tulane University's Newcomb Institute and Birthmark. As MCHC advances toward a shared agenda, our team has also leveraged relationships with MCH leaders whose expertise in integrating results-based thinking into collective impact initiatives has helped guide and strengthen the process.
Our MCH Team also facilitated the transition of the MCH policy group MAMA Plus Health to the stewardship of our longtime advocacy partner, The Amandla Group. MAMA Plus Health has since expanded from a focused policy agenda to an active resource for civic and MCH policy engagement education. Now, they are advancing these topics through workshops and ongoing advocacy to improve MCH policy at the state level.
Should I Get a Doula? Podcast
Launched in 2024, our Sr. Director of Media & Communications, Iman Shervington, goes on a journey to decide whether or not she should get a doula by speaking with doulas, birthing people, and an OB-GYN to answer every question she could think of relating to doulas and doula care.
Over the course of five episodes Iman hears firsthand about things such as the difference between doulas and midwives; how doulas support birthing families as a whole; the health disparities Black birthing people face and how doulas can help address some of them; what's needed to have a healthy pregnancy; how someone becomes a doula and what training they receive; how much doulas cost and how to find the right fit; and much more!