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Lamaze Family Center and Doulas Care Announce Collaborative Alliance;
Hosting Community & Professional Open House on May 20

To read the full press release, click here. (pdf file)

May 12, 2009—The Lamaze Family Center Ann Arbor (LFCAA) is proud to announce its collaborative alliance with Doulas Care, an Ann Arbor-based nonprofit. With similar missions, both organizations serve pregnant and postpartum families and forming this landmark alliance helps further support both organizations in their mission to support childbearing women and their families as they seek high quality, evidence-based maternity care.

“As part of our evidence-based curriculum, we educate families on the importance of having continuous labor support, before, during and after birth,” says Stephanie Schaldenbrand, MA, LCCE, CD(DONA), executive director of LFCAA. “Doulas can be an integral part of labor support and our alliance with Doulas Care will allow our families increased access to doulas services regardless of their economic backgrounds."

Both organizations are affiliated with larger national organizations, Lamaze International and DONA International, and serve as an example nationally for others to form partnerships between community based non-profit organizations serving pregnant and postpartum families.
The goal of the alliance, in addition to providing resources and support by Lamaze® certified childbirth educators and volunteer birth and postpartum doulas, is to increase our one stop shopping approach to educating and supporting families from pregnancy to preschool.

Both organizations maintain separate fiscal identities and Board of Director oversight while sharing office space at 2500 Packard Road. Collaboration between the two organizations through continuing education of both the public and medical community will be unveiled later this year and will focus on providing information and resources for families who working towards an optimal pregnancy and birth experience as the first step in their transition to becoming parents.

The two organizations will be hosting a Community & Professional Open House on Wednesday, May 20 from 4:30-6:30pm at their joint offices at 2500 Packard, Suite 101. The executive directors Stephanie Schaldenbrand and Lisa Kane Low will make a short presentation and then answer questions about the alliance at 5:00pm. Light refreshments will be served and all are welcome to attend the reception. Ann Arbor business and nonprofit leaders, elected officials and members of the Ann Arbor medical community have been invited.

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Lamaze Family Center offers more than childbirth classes

For the past 40 years our organization has provided relevant resources for women and their families from pregnancy to preschool. In recent years, however, it became apparent that while our mission remained constant, our image no longer adequately projected who we are. It is with a great deal of thought and care that we have updated our look to match the high caliber of education and support that we have always provided. We are proud to announce the following changes:

• Our new name is the Lamaze Family Center.
• We have redesigned our logo to illustrate our commitment to prenatal and postpartum families.
• We have made-over our website and now feature a user-friendly system to register for Lamaze Family Center classes online.

We hope you enjoy the changes we’ve made, and continue to count on us for all the tools and information you need from pregnancy to preschool.