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CHC Patients Graduate from March of Dimes’ “Becoming a Mom/Comenzando Bien®” Program

CLINTON, Conn; February 18, 2015: The Community Health Center (CHC) of Clinton celebrated five women who have successfully completed the March of Dimes “Becoming a Mom/Comenzando Bien®” curriculum, during a graduation ceremony on February 17th, 2015. The curriculum focused on educating Spanish-speaking women on how to have a healthy pregnancy.

This bilingual prenatal curriculum is specifically designed for use with pregnant women in a supportive group setting to learn about having a healthy pregnancy. CHC identified and recruited women from its Prenatal Clinic in Clinton to participate in eight 2-hour sessions, where they learned about prenatal care, nutrition, stress, things to avoid during pregnancy, labor and birth, postpartum care and newborn care.

“CHC is dedicated to improving health outcomes for its patients, and this curriculum helped us achieve that for the mothers we recruited,” said Raquel Espinoza, Childbirth Educator for CHC and facilitator of the group. “This program fostered a supportive social environment for our participants to learn while sharing.”

“By offering this program we expected the majority of participants to increase their pregnancy knowledge and have lower adverse birth outcome rates as compared to the current rates in the state of Connecticut,” explained Margaret Flinter, APRN, Senior VP and Clinical Director for CHC. “We are confident that this program did just that, and have received positive feedback from all of our mothers.”

During the graduation event, the moms shared stories of their experience, all agreeing that they learned more from this program than they had ever known (three of the five mothers have other children) – both through the curriculum and by sharing personal stories and experiences with the group. The women described the program as being comprehensive, easy to understand and accommodating. They also thanked the facilitator, Raquel, for making the environment so welcoming.

“March of Dimes is very proud to partner with Community Health Center, Inc. to provide pregnant women education, support and resources within their community, through the Comenzando Bien program,” said Erin Jones, State Director of Program Services, March of Dimes Connecticut Chapter. “The program aims to improve women’s knowledge of pregnancy and overall birth experiences.”