Bringing together community, culture, and care to advance Black maternal health
Mino Care (previously Mommy Monitor)
Elsie Amoako was a graduate student when she first began looking more deeply into the perinatal health experiences of equity-deserving groups. “I spent many years learning about the challenges that women and especially African, Caribbean, Black (ACB) and Latina women face in accessing perinatal health services, including the challenges they experience with receiving care that encompasses the wholeness of their experiences and contexts.”
In 2017, Elsie founded Mommy Monitor to improve Black and racialized maternal health and birth outcomes in Canada. First launching as an educational source and smartphone app, Mommy Monitor has evolved into a holistic virtual perinatal healthcare centre, offering access to a range of customized culturally safe perinatal health care services and social supports.
“This idea of bringing together community, culture, and care into one place is what led to the development of Mommy Monitor,” says Elsie.
Elsie recalls Mommy Monitor’s first client. “She was a young 24-year-old woman who had severe fibroids, had been pregnant several times before, had multiple miscarriages, and now found herself pregnant once again in an unsafe relationship while also experiencing housing insecurity,” she explains. “There were all these factors, and we provided a whole team of care providers to meet her specific situation, with ongoing support and monitoring. This young woman ended up giving birth to a healthy baby boy, and it was at that moment that we realized, ‘Oh, this is actually possible in healthcare.’”
In summer 2023, Mommy Monitor officially rebranded to Mino Care to reflect the community they serve and the ideals they represent.
Mino is a term in the Fon Language (Niger-Congo language) that was used to describe the Dahomey Amazons. The Dahomey Amazons were an all-female military regiment of the Kingdom of Dahomey (modern day Benin). Examples of the Dahomey Amazons can be found more recently in films like Black Panther or The Woman King. These warriors protected their king and community, and the term “Mino” was a name they were called, which means “Our Mothers”. Although the Mino did not have their own children while serving their community, they were still viewed as caregivers and mother figures.
Mino Care’s mandate is to be warriors, advocates, protectors, caregivers, support systems and mother figures to Mino Care clients, just as the Mino were to their community.
Mino Care’s mandate continues to be to provide a holistic perinatal care experience that is customized to meet the needs of clients at all intersections of their experience, and they continue to do this with a foundation based in knowledge sharing, cultural safety, health equity, anti-Black racism, and reproductive and birth justice.
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