“Why do you want to be a midwife?”
I’m sure it was a question my clinical preceptor was accustomed to asking each of her potential midwifery students, one met with a range of answers from servanthood to humility. I smiled, took a big deep breath, and exhaled into what would be a rigorous two-and-a-half year midwifery apprenticeship and thus, the awarding of my license to practice midwifery in the state of Texas.
According to research, African American women are:
- Nearly four times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy-related complications
- Three times more likely to experience pre-term birth
- Three times more likely to give birth to a low birth weight infant
- African American infants are approximately 230% more likely than white infants to die before their first birthdays.
At the core of studies that ruled out both socioeconomic status and education as determining factors, it was determined that these racial disparities in birth outcomes among African Americans were a combination of systemic racism, unconscious biases in health care, and long-term anxieties that come with being a black woman in America. In essence, it doesn’t matter how educated you are or what socioeconomic class you identify with—the color of your skin is the single most powerful determining factor in both establishing access to quality prenatal care and determining birth outcomes for you and your baby.
These realities have been a difficult pill to swallow, and I constantly find myself at the corner of difficult and impossible. Here I am: a black woman, a black mother, and one of only two black midwives to hold my specific license in the entire Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex. Couple that with that with the fact that I am serving women in counties with some of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates nationally. The heaviness of that is real and raw. But if there’s one thing I know about spaces of perceived impossibility, it’s that God always shows up to breathe life and purpose into it.
And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9
Kennasha Jones and I established My Sister’s Keeper Birth & Midwifery in the summer of 2017 in Fort Worth. Our heartbeat is to make exceptional prenatal care easily accessible to every woman, regardless of her demographic background, and to eliminate the racial disparity that exists in birth outcomes among African American women and their babies. Providing and maintaining quality continuity of care for all women echoes our hearts’ desire to celebrate the unique story of each individual.
Opening a midwifery practice came both as an outpouring of the hearts of two black women and midwives who refused to remain idle spectators to the demise of the black community. There are days when the weight of our assignment is heavy, and it is one we never take lightly. Then there are days when our clients show up and remind us that we are in fact changing the course of black history ten tiny toes at a time. With that comes a certain feeling of pride.
As long as God is the giver of our breath, the provider of our wisdom, and the perfector of our skill, no black woman within our reach will ever be restricted access to prenatal care for herself and her baby. It means that she no longer has nowhere to go. It means that as we care for her, we promise to be advocates for her right to have access to safe birth space. If she wants and needs to birth her baby at home, we will come to her. If she wants or needs to birth her baby at a birth center, we will prepare a place for her. If she wants or needs to birth her baby in the hospital, we have some of the best physicians and nurse midwives ready to receive her, and we will be by her side every step of the way.
These two black midwives hide in plain sight no longer. We are here. That is not a statement we make out of pride or prejudice. It’s one we make boldly out of a refusal to sit back and accept the fact that the color of our skin means that our babies are 3-4 times more likely to die than anyone else’s. It is unacceptable, and we will have no more.
“Why do you want to be a midwife?”
Because the Black American woman is an endangered species.
Because the Black American baby is an endangered species.
Because the Black American is an endangered species.
Being a Black American midwife is how I fight back.
Once upon a time we were all we had…
And still we rise.
Teree and Kennasha are midwives at My Sister’s Keeper Birth and Midwifery Services located in Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas. They are working to provide and maintain quality continuity of care for all women, while celebrating the unique story of each individual. They believe in empowering families through education and informed decision making. It is their desire to see all families thrive and flourish, one healthy pregnancy and birth at a time.