The LA Times Features A Black-Owned Birth Center
And the pregnant staff photographer who questions her own birth choices because of it
The LA Times published this piece last week on a midwifery-led and Black-owned birth center in Los Angeles, my home city.
The article is behind a paywall, and I haven’t read it because of that, but I did enjoy reading the behind-the-scenes and free follow-up piece - Behind the Story: Giving Birth While Covering Midwives - by the staff photographer who was pregnant while on the story.
In her piece, photographer Dania Maxwell describes how the care that she witnessed the featured midwives give caused her to question her own care while expecting her second child.
“As I spent more time with the birth workers and their patients, I began to question more and more where I wanted to deliver. Where would I feel safest, where would I feel most cared for? My questioning was tangled up with anxiety about COVID-19 and my emotional well-being as a pregnant woman during a pandemic.”
Dania also says:
“By my seventh month of pregnancy, I had watched Allegra and Kimberly provide intimate and vigilant support to multiple clients. I knew I really wanted to be in their care too, but journalists have to be mindful of conflicts of interest, so there was no way I could have hired them. I spoke to the midwives about this and Allegra recommended other midwives to me. I buried the feelings and continued with my hospital plan.”
It’s a lovely account. After Dania gives birth, one of the midwives she photographed for the story stops by to visit. Just as midwives do!
Like Dania, I expected to give birth the conventional way, without asking many questions. That was until I was introduced to midwifery care.
I recently wrote about giving birth at home for The Journal of Perinatal Education. It was published in the Summer 2021 issue…
and, Alice Turner (a doula celebrity!) had nice things to say about it : )
Thanks so much for reading and for your continued support. I’m taking a couple weeks off to enjoy the last days of summer. See you after Labor Day!
xo, Naima
I LOVE THIS ARTICLE! Thank you. I also neglected to tell you, I have a new Birth client. She is ‘due’ November 20th. Praying we will be allowed back in the hospitals by then. Enjoy your time off and thank you again 💞