T’ona “tee-ah-nuh” Sotomayor exudes magick as a Certified Maternal Child Community Health Worker, Certified Breastfeeding Specialist, Certified Full-Spectrum Doula, Certified Community-Centered Herbalist, and Certified Trauma-Informed Care
Practitioner. She graduated cum laude from Housatonic Community College earning an associate of Science (AS) degree in Health Sciences, as well as a certificate in Health Career Pathways.

She credits her decade-long role as a Patient Care Technician in critical and emergency care units as the driving force behind her vision to achieve a healthy and equitable society by prioritizing connections. With her current position as a Certified Maternal Child Community Health Worker for the Family Bridge program at Southwestern AHEC, Inc., T’ona showcases her lived expertise in Maternal Child Health as an advocate on the front lines with extensive experience in public health serving families in hospital, clinic, and other community settings, while simultaneously seeking to reduce adverse childhood experiences, trauma, health and racial disparities amongst underserved communities.

T’ona had always been a proponent for women’s health, even before she was formally called to do so, truly hitting her stride when she became a doula in 2020. Witnessing the demand for reproductive health justice for maternal and infant mortality within the Black community, T’ona founded Heartbeats + Bare Feet: Womban Wellness, LLC, which services the Bridgeport, Connecticut area by providing lactation, feeding, and womb-centered wellness care that supports all rhythms—fertility, pregnancy, loss, abortion, birth, postpartum—of the divine feminine through a holistic, trauma-informed approach, including ancestral roots, herbs, and healing modalities from the West African and Southern Tradition, and education. Reproductive health justice has been the foundation of who she is, all that she does, and who she is becoming. Additionally, T’ona is married to her elementary school sweetheart, mom of one exclusively breastfed child, active member of the Health Improvement Alliance (HIA) Child Well-Being Task Force, Connecticut Breastfeeding Coalition, Reproductive Health and the Black Experience Coalition, Paving the Way: Diversity in Lactation, Inc., National Honor Society for Leadership and Success, and pursuing clinical hours towards International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) certification.