#UMNMCH student, Karina Mendoza (MPH 2026), shares how her work as an Infant and Child Health Unit Intern at the Minnesota Department of Health empowers doulas and birth workers in the community through enhancing the communication of essential education and critical updates.
My journey to the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) MPH Program at the University of Minnesota began with both a professional and personal interest in maternal, infant, and child health equity. Prior to graduate school, I worked as a Health Specialist at Head Start where I helped families access healthcare, provided health education to caregivers, and developed community partnerships to support child well-being. To support this work, I became a doula and saw first-hand the limitations facing immigrant, low income, and BIPOC communities in this space. My time in community health work motivated me to pursue graduate training so I would have both the direct service delivery skills as well as the policy and program evaluation skills to effectively address systemic change.
My work at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) as an Infant and Child Health Unit Intern (Doula and Maternal Access) supports the implementation of the Dignity in Pregnancy and Childbirth Act to reduce disparities between maternal and infant health outcomes. The Dignity in Pregnancy and Childbirth Act requires the MDH to identify barriers in accessing doula and midwifery care, especially for marginalized communities. In my role I am responsible for developing the Minnesota Doula and Birth Worker Newsletter, which is a newsletter that contains legislative updates, summarizes the most current research specific to maternal and infant health, details training opportunities, and provides culturally specific resources in order to support diverse families. The purpose of the newsletter is to enhance communication, connection, and resource-sharing across Minnesota’s birth workers and maternal health advocates.
This project gives birth workers access to more timely and relevant information, helps them engage in advocacy efforts, and professionalize their workforce, in hopes to provide better maternal and infant health outcomes by reducing inequities in perinatal care. A primary focus of this project aims to elevate doulas as critical members of the care team, re-centering their needs and voices in maternal health policy and programming. As a doula, I typically support one family at a time but creating the newsletter showed me how I could reach and support a larger community of birth workers and, through them, the families they support. It reminded me that we need both direct care and public health tools to effectively promote health equity.
What has surprised me most during this internship is how profound the impact of a single resource–the newsletter–can be in strengthening an entire professional community. I did not anticipate the extent to which the distribution of brief updates and information can inspire connectedness among birth workers and support of this work. It has reminded me that necessary change does not have to be built on big, monumental projects. Sometimes it is the small behaviors, over time, that create the largest impact.
This experience demonstrated how public health projects can yield large-scale community impact. I have seen how they break down barriers that many face in accessing adequate perinatal care. I have been able to reflect on my learnings about program evaluation while also utilizing my background as a Health Specialist and doula to maximize the impact of the content. It has been a good reminder that equity and collaboration must be at the forefront of public health work. The real work is small and intentional, elevating voices from the community.
BIO
Karina Mendoza is a second-year MCH MPH student at the University of Minnesota. Prior to graduate school, she earned a Bachelor’s from California State University, Northridge.
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