Holy Family Birth Center

Holy Family's Mission

The mission of the service is to provide maternal and infant care within the context of the
family. Services shall be rendered in a God-centered atmosphere of compassion. Every
individual, as God's creation, has the right to safe, satisfying health care with respect for
human dignity and cultural variations. The individual has the right to self-determination, to
adequate information, and to achieve participation in all aspects of care.

About Us

If you're traveling down highway 88 through Texas's largely agricultural Rio Grande Valley,
you'll see an outcropping of cheerfully painted, bright yellow buildings situated on a flat
piece of land that once served as a cucumber field. This is Holy Family Birth Center,
located 11 miles north of the Mexican border in the town of Weslaco. Holy Family was
founded in September 1983 by Sister Angela Murdaugh, along with Sisters Mary
Thompson, Damien Francois, and Ann Wojtowicz. What started here as a small clinic is
now a model birth center, the oldest one in Texas, and comprises a range of facilities: six
birthing suites, a clinic, a classroom, a chapel, medical storage rooms, and housing for the
many resident staff, volunteers, students, and visitors.

Since its inception, Holy Family has been staffed exclusively by certified nurse-midwives
and registered nurses. It has become an important clinical learning site for many student
nurses and midwives. Holy Family offers students a chance to experience midwifery at its
best -- in a family-centered, culturally sensitive, holistic environment that provides
thorough, individualized care and teaching to its patients. Holy Family offers three and six
month clinical fellowships to recently graduated nurse-midwives and accepts volunteer
R.N.'s for service periods of one year.

Our History

In the early 1980's, Sister Angela Murdaugh was a Certified Nurse-Midwife at Su Clinica
Familiar, a community clinic supported by federal grants in the Rio Grande Valley. When
she discovered that more than 1,000 pregnant women in Hidalgo county still lacked
prenatal care, she decided it was time to open her own clinic. The initial grant for Holy
Family was given by the Meadows Foundation, under the umbrella of Catholic Charities in
the diocese of Brownsville. Seven years later, Holy Family became separately incorporated
as a non-profit organization in its own right.  Sister Angela is on sabbatical from Holy
Family Services until January 2008.

The past 20 years has been a time of rapid population growth and development for the Rio
Grande Valley. Many families still lack access to health care. Many of Holy Family's
clients are undocumented or do not have health insurance or Medicaid and cannot afford
care. Holy Family also serves patients who simply choose Holy Family over other
providers: we received the highest client satisfaction rating in a benchmark study completed
with 33 other birth centers nationwide in 1999. Through the volunteer efforts and generous
donations of its supporters, Holy Family has grown and the services it offers have
widened. Besides maternity care, Holy Family offers social services, a food pantry, clothes
and baby supplies, well-baby care, a variety of classes and volunteer opportunities
(patients as well as staff).  

Sr. Angela Murdaugh, who founded the birth center in 1972, was inducted into the Texas
Women's Hall of Fame in 2002. She was selected in recognition of her leadership to remove
barriers to midwifery practice, her efforts to create regulations for birth centers in Texas,
and her innovative service to the impoverished families in the border region.
Where Birth is a Blessed Event
Founder, Sister Angela
Murdaugh, CNM
Entrance to Holy Family Services
Birth Center- 5819 North FM 88,
Weslaco, Texas
Outside in the Holy Family garden
A Holy Family midwife
comforts a laboring mom

For more information, please contact:

Nancy Sandrock, CNM
Holy Family Birth Center
5819 North FM 88
Weslaco, Texas 78596
Tel: 956.969.2538
Fax: 956.969.5884

Toll free- 1-800-506-2237
Holy Family received the highest client satisfaction rating in a
benchmark study completed with 33 other birth centers nationwide
in 1999.
Holy Family nurse admiring a new
healthy baby after a lovely birth
Nancy Sandrock, CNM, Holy Family clinical
director during a well baby visit