We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cynthia Sparks a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Cynthia , thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
My resilience comes to me by way of my daughter, Keona Sparks, whom I birthed at age 15. As I’ve watched Keona morph into the strong, independent, compassionate, mother she has, I’ve learned much from her along the way. Keona markets her “Resilient” brand very well, and has taught me to look back, over my own life and list every major accomplishment that was tied to an emotion. She then lead me down a path to really feel the identified emotion, title it, and release it, if it were no longer serving my purpose. What an empowering suggestion and outcome, with me being the student. Parents can learn from their children and Keona has shown me first hand, by having me inventory my life, exactly how resilient I have been from being a teenage mom to being here talking with you on this platform.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am the founder of Mainline Maternity Care, an independent nurse owned and operated Maternal/Newborn Care organization founded by the request of many parents over the years. Having been a Perinatal, Maternity & NICU Nurse with Breastfeeding Counselor, Bereavement Specialist and Case Manager experience for 19 years and an additional 20 years in the health industry with my first hospital exposure being at The Johns Hopkins University Hospital at age 18.
I worked as a unit secretary in the antepartum, postpartum and newborn nursery areas, which, to me, was the best job ever. I have had the pleasure of caring for women from conception through the postpartum experience and beyond, in hospitals, in the community and in the privacy of their homes for almost 40 years. I became very intentional about the type of care I wanted to provide to other women, based on what I didn’t get in my own pregnancy journeys at age 15 and again at age 25. Despite my children being 10 years apart, and being born in 2 different states, the experience I received was the same. I wasn’t respected, heard, or even valued as a teenage mother or a “young mother” at age 25. I wasn’t even valued as a member in the industry I supported despite having a great work ethic. When Keona, my daughter gave me reasons why she shouldn’t have to attend college, what I heard the loudest was “I shouldn’t have to go to college, because YOU DIDNT!” Can you say ouch right here, that was a big slap in the face, but I took it and my solution was to admit that she was right. So I shared with Keona, that I didn’t go to college as I initially wanted to, and that this was due the challenges being a young mother presented me. I was taught to work hard, be a good person and take care of my family since I’d decided to have a child. Yup, another ouch, but “we can start going together”, and and that’s when my nursing journey began.
Fast forward, in my career, I have met some amazing women who nurtured me, believed in me and gave me opportunities to succeed and reasons to fight for something better. The something better was my morphing various roles into the care I deliver and really beginning to listen, learn and be “available” for my patients, care, services and treatment and feelings. I want this for every woman, especially those who were considered disadvantaged, like myself. The care I began to give, became constantly recognized by the families I was caring for. It was when patients kept saying, “can you come home with us”, that I made an agreement with GOD & The Universe. If another family asked me to “come home” with them, I’d make it official, and so, it was through parent requests that brought Mainline to life. First back in 2010 in Pennsylvania and now 2021 in Maryland. What I love most about what I do, which gives me absolute joy, is watching women and their partners transition from fear to confidence in their parenting journey.
Mainline is happy to be here to continue to serve families by meeting them when they are in their process and helping them look forward to the progress. Currently, Mainline is looking for partnership opportunities with other established industry leaders that are in support of moms, infants, toddlers and the families that care for them while prioritizing the importance of maternal mental health. Come check us out at a community baby shower on November 15th at the Woodlawn Library in Partnership with The Featherbed Lane Judy Center. For anyone interested in partnership or affiliation opportunities, we’re here, and welcome the opportunity. Thank you in advance and we hope to care for you or a mom you know in the future.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Looking back I think the 3 qualities/skills/areas of knowledge that have most impacted my career and the movement towards becoming a new business owner started with my own pregnancy. The first quality, I realized was needed was the ability for health care providers to listen to the patient. I was the patient, yet, people were talking around me and not to me. My personal experience, lead me to genuinely want to know what mothers were experiencing, good, bad and indifferent. Listening and validating a moms pregnancy experience, gave me the opportunity to listen and them the opportunity to be heard which fosters trust. Today this is called Motivational Interviewing, but in my moms house it was called “getting the facts straight from the horses mouth.”
The second quality/skill that was impactful in my career was becoming comfortable with silence. When I began my career in nursing, I was taught to do all the talking/teaching, which had me talking fast and vomiting all kinds of information onto a new parent. In my role as a Case Manager, I was taught that silence was a golden opportunity, that allowed patients time to think and reflect on the conversation at hand, while identifying strategies they were already using in everyday life. I began to pause the push to educate and allowed patients to tell me what they felt they needed and how they would/could do things differently to bring forth positive outcomes. I stopped being a nurse with an agenda by leading the conversations to becoming one that allowed time for silence, space and patient directed engagement.
The last quality/skill that has been most impactful in my journey working in this industry is effective communication. I’d like to offer as a bit of advise for anyone considering this work. Clear communication is key and caring for families in pregnancy, through birth and in the postpartum period speaks to the whole woman at different stages, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Nurses are responsible for educating patients, communicating with multidisciplinary team members and families about health conditions, treatments, medications, and post-care instructions, changes in condition, and more. If nurses cannot communicate complex medical information clearly and empathetically, patients may not fully understand how to manage their conditions at home and providers may miss critical details needed to care for the patient properly. That being said, nurses who communicate clearly with patients, families, and healthcare teams, ensure everyone is informed about care plans, changes and next steps in real time
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
I love this question and thank you for asking it. The reason I love this question is because if you would have asked me this years ago, I would have answered sleep is what I do when I feel overwhelmed. The person I was then, was suffering from major depressive disorder and being in an Ambien induced sleep was how I stopped the overwhelming thoughts, feelings and my anxious reactions. I was in counseling, taking mood altering prescribed medication and Ambien daily and was still sad or angry depending on the events of my life at the time.
What caused me to make a shift, was listening to my kids, Keona & Calvin. They encouraged me to think outside of what I’d learned and offered insight on internal healing through meditation, mindfulness practices, self care and opening up about my own thoughts and feelings. They encouraged me to use my voice and advocate for myself. They taught me how to prioritize my own health and create boundaries by saying no without guilt. As a caregiver, I’d forgotten what I liked, what made me happy and who I was outside of my mom role, nurse role and family caregiving role. When I learned how to make myself a priority, it gave me room to help other moms do the same. Maternal mental health is real and if mothers are not doing well themselves, how can we expect them to give the best to their babies. Mainline Maternity Care’s strategy is to infuse maternal/newborn/toddler health with mental health in support of holistic care in this precious population of parents.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mainlinematernitycare.org
- Instagram: Mainline Maternity Care
- Facebook: Mainline Maternity Care
- Linkedin: Mainline Maternity Care
Image Credits
VPH Studios & opincreative
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