The U.S. has the highest perinatal mortality rate of any high income country.
24 out of 100,000 birthing people die every year.
Black and Indigenous people are 2-3x's more likely to die.
These numbers have increased every year since we began recording in 1987.
8% of births are attended by Midwives in the U.S.
In other high-income countries the majority of births are attended by midwives.
85.54% of CNMs are white.
Social inequities of race, gender, sexuality, class, and age have a huge impact on a birthing person’s quality of care and access to care. The same social inequities can be barriers to BIPOC students becoming midwives and building a thriving practice in their communities.
This is a social justice issue.
Our goal is to reduce the barriers of BIPOC students becoming midwives by increasing access to skills, funding, and community in the San Francisco Bay Area. With more BIPOC midwives in communities everywhere, BIPOC families will have more choices in safe, culturally competent care that leaves them feeling respected and empowered as they grow their families.
Our Programs
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Plant: Student Skills Share Program
Our project hosts a FREE, monthly Student Skills program where students can learn hands-on midwifery skills from community midwives, share resources, and build connections. Students at any skill level are welcome to join the group. In addition, the program will support a small monetary gift for BIPOC students who attend a skill share day to help offset the cost of travel and their time.
These gatherings are a time where best practices and experiences are shared between a rotating group of midwives and students. Currently this is the largest gathering of Bay Area students! This work is so fundamental for building the relationships that help to make the hard work that a midwife does sustainable and safe for both the midwife and the community. These connections and skill shares are especially important for BIPOC student midwives who may have more barriers to shared community skills and fewer opportunities to connect with BIPOC students and midwives because of the overrepresentation of non-BIPOC midwives in the area.
The host midwives are rotated so students have the opportunity to learn from the experiences of many midwives. Priority is given to BIPOC midwives in the community.
BIPOC students and BIPOC midwives will be given a gift card for every skills day they are able to attend.
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Build: BIPOC Student Apprenticeship Fund
This portion of the fund goes directly to supporting student midwives who are in an apprenticeship.
Students in the program will submit a simple quarterly update on their apprenticeship. If they take a break from apprenticing their funds will be paused to allow for students who are actively apprenticing to receive that money.
There will be a two year maximum that a student can receive this money, and priority is given to students who reapply for the second year.
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Grow: New BIPOC Midwives Support
After finishing their studies and apprenticeship, a midwife is not yet ready to start their own practice. They must consider the cost of taking a licensing exam, buying equipment, getting a business license and medical number, maintaining a website and possibly social media, etc. This program will provide a start up package in the form of mentorship and funding for new BIPOC midwives in the Bay Area.
The program will provide a training day where new midwives can gather and go through a checklist of things they need to have and what needs to happen in order to legally open their own practice.
New midwives will be paired with experienced midwives for emotional and practical support.
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Repair: Cultural Competency for non-BIPOC Midwives
Because there is currently an overrepresentation of non-BIPOC midwives practicing in the Bay Area, some of them will be preceptors for BIPOC students. It is important to offer cultural competency training to these midwives to reduce the harm that may occur during an apprenticeship relationship.
The program will be hosted with a professional cultural competency facilitator such as the local group, Transforming White Privilege, which already hosts trainings specific to midwives.
Midwives will be invited to participate in monthly sessions for as long as they have a BIPOC student midwife.
Midwives will be asked to support the fund and facilitators with a donation for 9 months of facilitation per year.
