Mama Yogis Wellness  

  Breathe.Focus.Surrender

This project was created and designed with the explicit purpose to support and educate young teen parents through respectful age-and situation-appropriate methods coupled with the knowledge that a positive birth experience can be beneficially transformative for teen parents with long-lasting implications for their children.

 

The goals of the “Teens That Doula” project include increasing knowledge of pregnancy physiology and nutrition; promoting the health benefits of breastfeeding; encouraging high school completion and further education; working toward higher cessation rates of smoking and lower rates of alcohol and illicit drug use; and connecting to community resources that lead to increased access to health care, as well as demonstrating a decreased rate of pregnancy-related illness and infant mortality and morbidity. In addition to education, the program provides empowerment options for career pathways in the field of maternal health. Our teen parents will become “Maternal Health Innovators” empowering teen mothers of color in Washington, DC and its surrounding areas to make the most informed decisions and choices in their maternity care, their parenting, and their lives.

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For those teen mothers who qualify become trained and certified by Mama Yogis Wellness as doulas to provide critical services before, during and after birth. The primary goal of the “Teens That Doula” is project is to reduce infant mortality, adverse birth outcomes, low birth weight (LBW), and prematurity in at-risk pregnant women through a system of psychosocial support that includes case management, home visitation, childbirth education, perinatal health, nutrition and yoga, meditation & fitness classes, and doula support.