Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 14, Number 3, 1 Malaki 1997 — OHA grant supports pregnant mothers and their families [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OHA grant supports pregnant mothers and their families

by Kelli Meskin ri OHA grant is helping Hawaiians to birth healthy babies. Ke Ola Mamo, a native Hawaiian health care system, has coordinated a research program, Mālama Nā Wāhine Hāpai (Caring for pregnant women), that reaches out to women and youths in the earliest stage of their pregnancy. "So many people feel that if you're pregnant you've got to go see the doctor and that's gonna take care of everything/' said Lehua Henion, the health education officer at Ke Ola Mamo. "But that's not necessarily true." Most women don't even go to see the doctor in their first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Women tell their close friends, famihes or priests they' re pregnant before they go to a doctor, Henion said and thaf s what makes the Mālama program work - word of mouth within the

"People eome to Hawai'i and they say it's all in who you know, and yeah it is, that' s the family, that's the sense of 'ohana that pervades here," said Aggie Pigao-Cadiz, a Mālama Nā Wāhine Hāpai nurse. "Using that route we get the care that we need and want." "We talk story with the mom," said ]amie Ater, another Mālama Nā Wāhine Hāpai nurse. "When you eome in with a nursing background you're trained to be always

assessing the situation, so when you're talking story you're looking at them," Ater said. She looks to see if they are swollen, to make sure they look the right size for the length of their term. She asks what the doctors said, how the blood test went, if they have diabetes, and if they have any problems or questions. "We just educate them a little more," Ater said. The program helps women feel comfortable with what is happening and what the doctor saying. "You're in and out of there pretty quick and there are a lot of questions you have," said Miehelle Wood, another Mālama Nā Wāhine Hāpai nurse. "Make it easy for them to understand so it isn't so

meaieai and tectmical. The women really do feel a better sense of what is happening and are more informed with the help of the nurses. WandaMay Castro, who is now the mother of a three-month-old boy, is grate-

ful for Ater's support and help. "She was a person that I could trust and confide in, I could eome right out ane ask ]amie and she'd tell me what I should be expecting with my uterus and all this kind stuff," Castro said. "She not only gave me a friendship, she gave me a lot of information, handouts pamphlets and made sure that I went to doctors appointments." The program was initially created to address the problem of low-birth-weights among Hawaiian, Filipino and ]apanese babies in the Hilo-Puna district on the Big Island. Ke Ola Mamo's Mālama Nā Wāhine Hāpai program is modeled after a program that researched and implemented eommunity health in the Hilo- j Puna district. f. & MālamaNā

Wahine Haoai was oreanized in

una, based on a project done by the slational Institute of Health. The Puna group received a grant to do research on pregnant women. The program is open to the whole family, not just the mother. Fathers are weleome to seek information and ask questions 1 about the pregnancy and what to expect. Castro shared pamphlets and information she learned through the program with her son's father. He learned a lot.

_ she said, even though he has two other children. Castro said that when she was pregnant they listened to fetal heartbeat as a family. "He learned things just as mueh as I did." she said referring to the father of her son. Men are always weleome to join, Ater said, but most men learn from their wives or girlfriends. After the mother gives birth the Mālama nurses are still there to make sure everything is going well, that the family is adapting and to eheek if the baby i having any problems. 'They're only in the hospital for about a day, they're in and out of there so fast

that there's no time for any of the nurses or anybody really to do mueh teaching really," Wood said. Pigao-Cadiz said that when a woman becomes pregnant, and after iii— she mves birth. shp nppds to bp

ible to connect with another voman. "You gotta tell your 3tory about what you went through in labor," she said. "It's the woman who's going to say to the other woman, 'I understand where you've been.'" "I was lucky to have a nurse right at my hand," Castro said. "It's like having care right at your finger tips." Two other organizations work in collaboration with Ke Ola Mamo to make 1 the Mālama program work, the Department of Health and Emory University in Georgia. OHA's grant covers the cost of a full-time project coordinator, and two parttime outreach workers.

The program also receives support from Kiwanis Clubs, the O'ahu Filipino Jaycees, and the KTA stores. Three nurses and one community outreach worker are at the Windward and Leeward Community Prenatal Care Center. "People always ask what is it that makes Mālama work and there really no tangible answer," Ater said. "It's the spirit, it's the belief in what you do, it's bonding. It's a whole bunch of things that go back to real traditional cultures with women taking care of women."

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Women 1.om A.er, Agg.e Mgooprogram, from lett to ng ■ m nurses, Lehua ^on^nlaMa^ ( Castro with son, and Outreac worker Zena Weleh.

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