For the past two decades, I have served the families of my community in Midland, Texas, as a Certified Professional Midwife. Throughout those years, I had a front row seat to the most beautiful moments imaginable, but I also had the unique honor of sitting with women during their deepest struggles and heartaches. I frequently encountered issues such as pregnancy loss, marriage troubles, breastfeeding struggles, postpartum depression and anxiety, pelvic floor dysfunction, and nutritional and hormonal imbalances…battles that women and mothers have quietly fought for years. Midwifery is rooted in whole-woman healthcare, which means that, while we strive to give the highest quality physical care for both mother and baby, we also spend a great deal of time addressing the mental, emotional, social, and spiritual components of health that allow women to truly flourish. Part of providing good care is recognizing when a client’s needs fall outside of your scope of practice, and having a place to send them where they can get that care.
Sometimes I could get them in to a great counselor, lactation specialist, or physical therapist, but often, the lack of relationship between the providers resulted in delays that left women feeling hopeless and forgotten.
In 2017, an idea began rolling around in my head: What if I could get all of these providers in one location? And what if these providers could lease a room, and own and operate their own businesses within this location, while working together to ensure these mothers receive the highest level of cooperative care? And what if this was also a place where women could build community and camaraderie with one another, take a childbirth prep class, receive professional help for postpartum depression, and find breastfeeding help, etc?
It sounded like a no-brainer. Surely someone else was already doing this and doing it well! Since I didn’t want to recreate the wheel, I started researching to see if such a business model already existed. Surprisingly, I couldn’t find anything that looked like what I was envisioning.
So as overwhelming of a task as it seemed to be, I knew I needed to create it.
In 2019, Anthus Women’s Healthcare Collaborative opened its doors. Anthus means “to flourish,” and that was exactly my prayer for each woman who would step through our doors.
As with any business start-up, we have had our fair share of highs, lows, and opportunities for growth. Our providers have served countless families in different capacities over the past several years, and it brings me immense joy to hear a tired, new mom express what a relief it is that her midwife, lactation specialist, and postpartum counselor are all in the same place.
We currently have an in-house Childbirth Educator, Birth Doula, Licensed Massage Therapist, a Certified Professional Midwife, a Nurse Practitioner who offers core and pelvic floor restoration treatments, a Speech/Feeding/Lactation therapist, an Ozone and Infrared Light Therapist, a Registered Sonographer, and a Nurse who offers postpartum counseling and in-home mother & baby care.
As the owner of this collaborative, there are a few challenges that I have faced: first and foremost, in order to continue serving our community, we have to be able to keep the doors open and the lights on, which means that we need all 7 of our available rooms filled. While every room is utilized in some capacity, only 5 are leased full-time, with the others operating on a day-rate system for providers who either cannot afford a full lease, or who are still in the beginning stage of their business. Unfortunately, this means that Anthus Women’s Healthcare Collaborative’s bottom line needs some help.
I believe in these businesses and in the women who are building them, but introducing positive changes in women’s healthcare is not a quick process. While the providers are brilliant, educated, and have the credentials, it takes time and money to develop solid marketing, get your name and face before the community, and show them how you can help them. That gap is exactly the challenge I hoped to address with these funds.
Our plan is to increase our marketing budget and explore some new ways to get Anthus’s name and our provider’s services before the community. We have hopeful plans to expand into Google Ads and paid social media marketing soon. We would also put funds toward maintaining and improving our website, which is currently being managed in-house, but could certainly use some outside help from a professional. The long-term goal is to continue to build more Anthus' statewide, allowing more women to benefit from this new model of health care.
We would also like to ease the financial burden that Anthus has endured by being a place that allows newer healthcare businesses a place to put down roots and grow. As I said before, these women are world-changers; they’re brilliant, and extremely capable of growing and maintaining a business…but they need time to build, and a space in which to do it. Because I am so grateful for the work that they’re doing for women, I would love to continue providing that space and to see significant improvements in the maternal health care system become a reality!
I humbly thank you for your consideration,
Shanna Cloyd, CPM, LM