Ashley: The Mothers Empowered is prenatal care in a group setting. You just kind of get to know each other and share resources, you share experiences, because some moms are first time moms and some moms are like me, they have quite a few children.
Ashley: This was my second time in the Mothers Empowered group.
Lorrie Loudy: When they walk in the door, they sign in on a sign in sheet. They grab their name tag. They get their weight. They take their own blood pressure, record it, hand it to me, and then the first 30 minutes of the appointment, they eat some snacks and socialize.
Ashley: It was really cool to get to know everybody. It's really cool to benefit from these resources that everybody knows and to just follow the journey of, like okay we're pregnant at the same time.
Lorrie Loudy: The first session is more about getting to know each other, getting to know the midwife, getting to know the people who are caring for you. We do talk about nutrition, the common discomforts of pregnancy, from early pregnancy all the way through labor.
Ashley: A midwife calls you back to a private room and she checks the baby's heartbeat, checks your fundal height, answers any questions you might have like if you've been having contractions.
Ashley: One of the things that we do in there is learn how to care for your baby. So Lorrie had a little baby doll and so you pick slips and whatever your slip says that's what you do for her, just to kind of give them some experience because for a lot of moms who really had no idea what being a mom would be like.
Lorrie Loudy: We talk about all of the benefits of breastfeeding, infant care, finding a pediatrician, keeping your baby safe.
Ashley: We just learned a lot about how it's okay like if you need to talk to somebody, it's okay to go to therapy. It's okay to take some me time.
Lorrie Loudy: It's nothing to be ashamed of. A lot of women have postpartum depression. It needs to be talked about, should not be swept under the rug and then after all of our mothers have had their babies, we have a postpartum party. Gives these moms a chance to see the other babies in their group, hear their birth story, see how their labors and deliveries went.
Ashley: Everybody's able to benefit from this group. It's just really a really, really cool group. I can't even always put it into words.
Lorrie Loudy: They need that support system of other moms who are going through the same thing that they're going through and the whole idea is for them to become friends outside of the group and have the support of each other.
Lorrie Loudy: We would like for our mothers to have full term babies and feel confident in their birthing decisions and taking care of themselves, taking care of their babies during their pregnancy, after their pregnancy, feeling confident that when they bring that baby home that they have all the tools and the skills they need to be a good mother.
Lorrie Loudy: I think it's very important for them to be able to form bonds with other moms. Some of them don't have a very strong support system at home. Some of them, maybe the father of the baby is not involved any longer. Some of them don't have family that live nearby, so they have these other women as a good support system.
Ashley: I feel like a lot of the younger girls that were in the groups that I was in, especially the first time mom girls, they were able to like, feel like that they weren't alone.
Ashley: The resources that Mothers Empowered kind of connects us to, they're lifesavers.
