Building Healthier Futures for North Dakota Families
Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies of North Dakota was created to strengthen the connections between families, providers, and communities and to help improve maternal and infant health across our state.
Every Family Deserves the Opportunity to Thrive.
Pregnancy, birth, and early parenthood are deeply personal experiences, but families shouldn't have to navigate them alone.
Across North Dakota, families, healthcare providers, doulas, community organizations, and tribal communities are already doing important work to support mothers and babies. HMHBND was created to help strengthen those connections, expand access to information and support, and create more opportunities for collaboration.
Our work centers on the belief that healthier families grow from connected communities.
To improve maternal and newborn outcomes across North Dakota by expanding access to safe birth options, strengthening postpartum support, and fostering collaboration between families, providers, and communities.
We work to connect people, strengthen resources, support education, and create opportunities for collaboration across North Dakota.
Our Mission
Connection Matters
What We Believe
Families are part of larger communities, and stronger connections can create stronger support systems.
Every Family Deserves Access
Where someone lives, their circumstances, or the community they come from shouldn't determine whether they can find support.
Families Deserve to be Heard
Lived experiences matter. Listening to families helps communities better understand what is working and where gaps remain.
Collaboration Makes Us Stronger
Healthcare, birth work, public health, community organizations, tribal communities, and families each bring important perspectives.
Culture & Community Matter
Maternal and infant health is connected to family, culture, community, and the environments in which people live.
Support Should Continue Beyond Birth
Healthy families need support through pregnancy, birth, postpartum, infancy, and beyond.
Our Approach
HMHBND isn't here to replace the organizations and professionals already serving North Dakota families. We're here to help connect the pieces.
We create opportunities for people to share knowledge, find resources, build relationships, and work together toward healthier outcomes for mothers, babies, and families.
Connect
Bringing families, professionals, organizations, and communities together.
Educate
Creating opportunities for learning, professional development, and community education.
Share
Making resources, stories, information, and community knowledge easier to access.
Collaborate
Building relationships across healthcare, birth work, public health, tribal communities, and community organizations.
Support
Helping families and those who serve them find the resources and connections they need.
Connecting Communities, Not Competing With Them
Those conversations around a shared table became Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies of North Dakota.
At the heart of HMHBND is a simple belief: we don't have to do everything ourselves to make a difference.
North Dakota already has countless individuals, organizations, healthcare professionals, businesses, and community programs doing meaningful work for families. HMHBND exists to help connect those pieces rather than duplicate them—making it easier for families to find trusted resources while creating more opportunities for the people serving them to collaborate.
That vision is already taking shape through initiatives like Birth Storytelling Circles and the development of a statewide Community Resource Guide, with future plans for education, community events, partnerships, advocacy, and additional programs supporting maternal, infant, child, and family wellbeing.
And This Is Just the Beginning
HMHBND continues to grow through an expanding community of board members, volunteers, healthcare professionals, businesses, nonprofits, and community leaders who believe that no family should have to navigate pregnancy, parenthood, or early childhood alone.
There is a place for everyone in this work.
Whether through volunteering, sharing expertise, becoming a Community Partner, sponsoring an event, contributing resources, or simply helping spread the word, every contribution helps strengthen families across North Dakota.
Together, We're Building Something Stronger
Healthy moms. Healthy babies. Stronger families. Connected communities.
Our Story
A Vision That Became a Shared Mission
Every meaningful movement begins with someone who sees a need and believes things can be better.
For Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies of North Dakota, that vision began with Megan Heer.
Megan's own journey into motherhood deepened her passion for supporting women through one of life's most significant seasons. As a Certified Birth Doula, Certified Postpartum Doula, and Certified Lactation Counselor, she spent years walking alongside families through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. Through those experiences, she saw something clearly: North Dakota is home to incredible organizations and dedicated professionals, but too many families didn't know where to turn. Resources existed, yet they could be difficult to find, disconnected from one another, or unavailable in many rural communities.
Megan began imagining something different—a statewide nonprofit that could bring together healthcare providers, community organizations, businesses, educators, volunteers, and families around a shared purpose: helping North Dakota families access the education, support, and resources they need to thrive.
That vision grew when Tori Weinand, a family nurse practitioner with a passion for women's health, preconception, pregnancy, postpartum care, and early childhood development, joined Megan in bringing the idea to life. Tori had witnessed many of the same challenges in her own professional and personal experiences with families.
Then Cassy Walcker, a pediatric nurse practitioner, joined the mission, bringing her experience caring for North Dakota's youngest patients and her commitment to helping children and families thrive. Together, the three founders recognized that improving the health of mothers, babies, and children requires more than healthcare alone. It requires strong communities, meaningful relationships, and easier connections to the people and resources already doing good work across North Dakota.
Our Team
HMHBND is made possible by people who bring different experiences, professional backgrounds, and perspectives to the work of improving maternal and infant health.
Co-Founder, President, CBD, CPD, CLC, Midwifery StudentMegan Heer
Tori Weinand
Co-Founder, Vice President, DNP, FNP-BC
Cassy Walcker
Allison Loeb
Treasurer
Co-Founder, Secretary, PNP-PCBre Herr
Board Member at Large, CBD, Direct Entry MidwifeReady to Make a Difference? We’re just getting started
There is still work to do, and we know we can't do it alone. As HMHBND grows, we hope to build stronger partnerships, expand access to resources and education, listen more deeply to families and communities, and create more opportunities for people across North Dakota to be part of this work.