The Bronx is [Birthin']: Birthwork in the 'Hood



Nothing brings me the kind of joy helping women give birth in the Bronx does. My formal training as a doula began in New Jersey through a fellowship in which I served three low income women in exchange for in-depth education. I remember learning the statistics for African Americans birthing in this country. It enraged me then and it still does, if not more than ever. I knew that the traveling to be educated on pregnancy and childbirth, from New York to Jersey to Texas and back, meant gaining the ability to come home to the Bronx. Bringing my skills to the most financially disenfranchised congressional district in the country became a necessity and an honor. I’ve seen birth in Lincoln Hospital and Bronx Lebanon and have experienced my first homebirths in the Bronx; the sacrifices were well worth it.



I am blessed to have been a doula for a childhood friend during her second pregnancy and birth. To be able to have women like her that I’ve had some kind of bond with come to me for assistance feels special. Often, we are not privy to such intimate moments of our kindred spirits, activist community members; to be invited to see a woman in her rawest form is a huge privilege. It was my first homebirth after graduating from Maternidad La Luz, a midwifery school and birth clinic in El Paso, Texas. I got to see her mother, who knew me as a child too, come after the birth with food and to bond with her new grandbaby. Being able to attend this birth with a sister midwife was also wonderful. It was a beautiful early June morning.



The last birth I attended in 2015 was Tanya Field’s homebirth. I had known her from a few years back during the days I was building connections with social justice organizers. Meeting her was the first time I learn of her work with food justice in the South Bronx.The BLK Projekwas created in 2009 when the Bronx activist and mother wanted to take a more proactive approach in her quest for social justice and inclusive economic development. It seeks to address food justice and economic development by harnessing the local, good food movement and creating small business and career opportunities for willfully neglected women and youth of color. Being involved in her prenatal care gave me a glimpse into how we are directly impacted by the disparity in food options available to our community. In the summertime, I’d walk to her at the Libertad Urban Farm, a plot of land in our neighborhood that she and her staff have been cultivating to grow food. I listened to her experiences as a Black mother in the South Bronx.



When the opportunity to collaborate with a licensed midwife on her prenatal care presented itself, I was excited about it. It was perfect that Tanya and I happened to live a 20 minute walk away from each other, so I was close enough to assist in providing her care from her last trimester through 6 weeks postpartum. It made me feel like a community healer serving women of color in my local community. It mattered to me to help her and contribute to her health in such a meaningful way. In our neighborhood near Hunts Point, we don’t often experience being loved in our interactions with physicians. This was something Tanya, my other clients, and I reflected on; it means a lot to us when someone treats us with love, respect, and kindness.



The summer and fall of 2015 blessed me with being able to work with primarily women of color in the Bronx. I was able to be a resource of empathy and personalized maternal care in a culturally relevant way. I remember feeling the weight of birthing while Black in this country when I held space for my clients witnessing the murders of young Black folks over those months while grappling with the effects of systemic racism on their lives. The experience deepened my understanding of how low income women struggle against the bureaucratic, uncompassionate and at times inhumane gatekeepers of their access to quality reproductive health care. I watched how my sisters were treated in the hospitals during their pregnancies and births; just to think of the neglect, wickedness (as one of my clients says of her labor and birth at a Bronx hospital) and abuse I’ve endured with them boils my blood. Being involved with my clients’ process gave me an intimate look at the scarcity of options and resources for low income women of color planning to start and expand their families.



Being a part of the efforts to improve birth outcomes in the Bronx has also given me a rich experience of the strength, beauty, and resiliency Bronx women and their families possess; I am inspired by all the encounters I have had. I was able to assist two of my clients through the Healthy Women Healthy Futures (HWHF) project last year made possible through a grant from New York City Council. The project provides birth and postpartum doula care to women in New York City who otherwise cannot afford the services; I decided to focus primarily in the Bronx. Now in its beginning stages of outreach and impact, the HWHF project is helping to raise awareness about the necessity and benefits of doula care. It was amazing to watch my two clients by way of HWHF become mothers for the first time. They were both courageous and fierce in their own ways as we navigated the hospital system during their labors and births. I would muse with them and Tanya about our respective relationships being mad hood, as recommendations, assessments and life stories were weaved together in our urban vernacular, in our homes, and sometimes wherever we could make it happen. I have memories of having prenatal visits in clients’ cars because home was a little too hectic at those moments. We laughed and enjoyed these times, aware that Black women being able to care for each other in this way is homegrown and not sterile in the way our bodies are often treated by the American medical system.



For Tanya, having had a midwife - assisted delivery in her home a couple of yearsback, she knew the difficulty navigating the system to have that care. Some women who birth in hospitals do it because homebirth is not a financially viable option for them; Tanya shared with me how the complexities of getting insurance to cover midwifery care can shut out low income women who cannot pay out of pocket for this service. It was such a treat for me then to be a part of her care for this pregnancy. I loved answering the questions her daughters had about what I was doing during my visits at her home. Seeing her be able to surrender to her birthing process was nothing short of amazing as I witnessed her achieve the homebirth she wanted. It felt triumphant to me knowing the things she was going through in her own journey fighting for social justice in her community.



There is something very healing about seeing Black and Latina women birth their children. It comes from having grown up in the Bronx for 17 years and understanding that people that come from where I’m from are not expected to succeed nor be resilient. The Bronx is often remembered asburning, with the era of destruction by fire in the 70s and 80s; but I know my hometown’s story does not end in ashes. I am grounded by being of service to women from my hometown; my experiences here fuel the work I do of framing and contextualizing the lives of women of color. Every woman of color I assist in bringing another person of color into the world makes the genocide of Black and Brown bodies a little less harsh. My work gives me hope. It gives me the reality and potential of our transformation through changing our healthcare, addressing the human rights violations experienced by low income people and folks of color, and supporting the already existing efforts and neighborhoods fighting to grow something beautiful. For me, this work connects me to my roots and that which I am passionate about – the liberation of all people oppressed in this world. Here in the Bronx, I can do my part to make sure it keeps birthin’.

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