After months of anticipation, we are excited to announce the grand opening of the new Casa Materna in San Marcos!

“The inauguration of the new Casa Materna was a success! The community of Pueblo Nuevo was happy to hear from and share with representatives from the Ministry of Health, the Municipal Government, Impact Global Health Alliance Guatemala and other institutions and organizations. All are hoping that the project will benefit the entire territory of Pueblo Nuevo and through this, reduce maternal mortality in the area.” 

 

Dr. Mario Valdez, Impact Global Health Alliance Guatemala

Impact Global Health Alliance’ Casas Maternas are culturally-adapted birthing facilities that provide women with vital health services during the pregnancy, delivery, and after birth processes. These Casas are strategically built to provide access for multiple communities and the opening of this particular Casa Materna marks the expansion into a new partner region — San Marcos. There have already been multiple deliveries at the new Casa! We’re so excited to see all that is in store for this community in the future.

Sustainability

One of our core values at Impact Global Health Alliance Global is sustainability. In order to ensure long-term sustainability, the community must be mobilized. As a result, the Casa Materna model places emphasis on members of the community leading and facilitating operations at the Community Birthing Centers.

Committees of leaders from the community were established for the Community Birthing Center. These leaders were trained to lead as well as evaluate Center operations in addition to managing a community-owned insurance plan to defray family obstetric emergency costs. Therefore, the Casa is completely led and organized by community members.

Birth Auxiliary Nurses and Indigenous Community Health Workers also play a large part in sustainability. Birth Auxiliary Nurses create a bridge between the communities and Community Birthing Centers as they provide care in the facilities but also train traditional midwives known as comadronas to accompany women to the center. The Auxiliary Nurses also lead support groups for women and children to discourage early marriage and pregnancy. Indigenous Community Health Workers train volunteer mother peer educators who make up our Care Groups to educate their peers about maternal and child health and nutrition. The mothers in the community

Scaling Up

Our successful pilot Casa Materna and subsequent smaller expansions have encouraged greater scale-up into more communities in Guatemala and abroad. Maternal/neonatal mortality and child stunting have been greatly reduced in our communities that currently have our Casa Materna and we are excited to add San Marcos, specifically the Pueblo Nuevo area,, to our partners that will hopefully also see a reduction in these rates. We hope that the addition of these Casas Maternas will not only be beneficial for the communities that they serve but also be beneficial for research as we continue to scale-up this model to other parts of Guatemala and around the world.

Partnerships

A special thank you goes to our partners: Guatemala Ministry of Health and Welfare of San Marcos, Tajumulco Department of Health, the municipality of Tajumulco, Impact Global Health Alliance Guatemala, Ronald McDonald House Charities, and the community of Pueblo Nuevo, Tajumulco.

 

Article by Purva Trevedi, Marekting and Outreach intern