Aintie Tia
“Women empowering women growing healthy babies.”

The Aintie Tia Program is a partnership with the Fort Worth/Dallas Birthing Project. So many pregnant women and teens have an aunt, “aintie” or tia, mother, grandmother, or sister that provides support to them during their pregnancy and after their babies are born.  Women helping women has been the way for so many, and the birth of a child is one of the most transforming moments in a woman’s life.  The intensely physical, emotional and spiritual experience of birth can either reinforce or move a woman beyond prior histories of pain and disempowerment.  The Aintie-Tia Program will create knowledgeable role models in the community to support healthier pregnancies, improved birthing results, longer periods of breastfeeding, and improved self-efficacy for the women in our community. We would like to educate those “Aintie-Tias” to better support the women and teens in our community, especially those with no support system.

The purpose of the Aintie-Tia Program is two-fold.  The primary objective is to provide integrated education, hands-on assistance and support during pregnancy, labor and birth, breastfeeding, and early motherhood through the support of women in the community where poor birth outcomes and infant mortality are prevalent.  The second objective is to cultivate a network of trained, peer-community volunteers that understand the spoken and unspoken language of her community and shares values, attitudes and experiences with the women she will serve.

The project described was supported by Grant Number MD001633 from NIH/NCMHD and its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NCMHD.