As Hispanic Heritage Month was approaching, all of Centro was in conversation about what this time means to us and how we each celebrate it. A theme that came up again and again was family, and its central place in the life of many Latinos. There are so many factors that contribute to a healthy family, but one aspect we kept coming back to? Maternal health. The mental and physical health of mothers are both foundational elements of a family’s well-being and, by extension, the well-being of any community. In honor of maternal health’s importance in all our lives, we would like to share this interview with two Centro directors responsible for building and facilitating Centro’s new CUNA program. Together, we hope to make this level of focus on maternal health a standard of care throughout East Tennessee!
Centro’s Director of Community Resources, Cristina Cáceres (Left), and our Director of Operations, Maria Matney (Right).
What is the CUNA program and how did it come to be?
Cristina: Cuna is the word for crib in Spanish, and the program will work to address maternal health disparities in the Latina population by providing expecting mothers with more prenatal and postpartum support and education, plus an emotional wellbeing component. Claudia Caballero and I met with a different Centro Hispano in Arkansas, who had a similar maternal health program. Both of us had the thought, “this should be our next thing!”
Maria: At around the same time, Cherokee’s Director of Health Equity reached out to us about piloting a maternal health program at Cherokee. They had recognized the need for it, and understood that it would need to be connected to the community to really have an impact.
Cristina: I wasn’t pregnant when Claudia and I were first daydreaming about it, but by the time we began designing the program, I was taking a number of prenatal classes, myself! I finished writing the program, in Perú, five months pregnant. Coming back from maternity leave, I found out that we had gotten the grant.
Maria: The timing was really something special. We knew we needed to do something about maternal health and we were working to keep the interpreter program going. Now, our interpreters will study an entire module on maternal health and will then be connected with our CUNA moms during their practicum work.
Cristina: Motherhood is such a vulnerable and empowering moment in a woman’s life. We’re thrilled to be bringing a program like this to the women of our community.
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