The H.E.A.L.I.N.G. Midwifery Team and Our Individual Intentions
Ellen Solis, DNP, CNM, FACNM
My foremost intention in this project is to learn—deeply and humbly—from midwifery communities that hold the critical insight into the current models of midwifery education and practice. This learning begins with listening. I believe that starting with interviews and listening sessions is essential, because the wisdom and experience needed to design an integrated educational model lies within the midwifery community and I want to help galvanize the transformation our communities are calling for. I want to understand what meaningful change looks like, and I trust that midwives—aspiring, student, practicing, and teaching—are the ones who can guide us there. My second intention is to be in authentic partnership and community with the members of our research team. Each person brings unique strengths—wisdom, foresight, creativity, attention to detail, artfulness, integrity, ethical clarity, and joy—and I am committed to honoring these contributions as we move forward together. Collaboration is not just a method; it is a value that grounds this work. Finally, my intention is to co-create something new from the fractured landscape of midwifery education—a vision that emerges not from institutional mandates, but from the lived experiences and collective wisdom of those most impacted. I recognize the deep history of harm within the midwifery profession, including the marginalization of community-based birth and the erasure of Black and Indigenous midwives and our traditions. This project is an opportunity to reimagine midwifery education in a way that centers healing, justice, and liberation.
Farrah Ka’healani Rivera, MS, LM
My intention is to listen holistically using more than just my ears but to also listen with my heart and spirit. I will honor the stories and testimony midwives, birthworkers and perinatal advocates are willing to share, to guide this project in a good way. I will build and hold the container where the voices of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ midwives are centered, to acknowledge and highlight their value in this work. I want to share and celebrate in the intricate tapestry of midwifery, where generational trauma and resilience are so closely entangled into our midwifery world that is broken and separated. So much so, I have witnessed us fighting amongst one another. I will do my best to encourage bravery when the unseen battles that BIPOC and LGBTQ+ midwives regularly face are revealed. Sharing these stories may not be easy, and it will bridge where education, provider to patient care and maternal and infant outcomes intersect. My intention is to shed light on how cultures and traditions can be foundations in healing our strained profession, by sharing that community-based collaboration can fill the gaps where the reach of modern-day midwifery can no longer hold. I am acknowledging that at this moment, during this time in history, I am writing this intention feeling that HEALING midwifery seems impossible. Yet despite the hurdles that we as a team and community will endure, I am willing to enter into this journey because of the guiding lanterns of hope I see in the growing student midwives’ body, who hold kuleana, responsibility in navigating the future of midwifery.
Tiffany Reńee Ellis-Brown, IBCLC, Student Midwife
My intention is to support a future of midwifery that is rooted with the Indigenous and Black midwives locally and globally. To me this starts with the aspiring midwife – someone who hasn’t begun their apprenticeship or education yet. For me, I wish I didn’t have to choose between my ancestral practices and the medical training and privileges available within the closed medical industrial complex. This practice is so ingrained, it shouldn’t be a separate profession with different guidelines. I want equity. My intention is equity, starting with how student midwives are educated and supported. My intention is to create healing change for the students coming after me. I want to become the midwifery mentor I wish I had and hold space in a clinical and spiritual way that I cannot find. With this project I hope to find room for all of us to experience the equity that will help acknowledge the historical violence.
Letitia Salazar-Monk DNP, CNM
The Healing Midwifery Together Project resonates with a personal and professional need to build a bridge between my practice as a Certified Nurse Midwife and my roots in community and cultural-based healing and birthing practices. All pathways to midwifery are impacted by the pressures of licensure, lack of resources and access imposed by White-Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy. Having worked in conventional and non-conventional settings, I see our needs and struggles as more aligned than at odds. My intention is to identify our collective assets to envision a pragmatic path forward for our profession through education. In the process of communing with midwives I hope to support the reclamation of community while honoring our identities and lineages.
Molly Altman, PhD, MPH, CNM, FACNM
I recognize the extensive history of harm that has been perpetuated throughout the midwifery profession, including the stigmatization of community-based birth and the erasure of Black and Indigenous midwifery practices. Centering this as our orientation, my intention is to utilize my knowledge, expertise, and importantly the power and privilege I hold as a white academic nurse-midwife scientist to support our team in the re-imagining of midwifery education in partnership with stakeholders in all aspects of the midwifery profession. I intend to utilize our past experience in truth and reconciliation to support acknowledgment of harm experienced by members of our midwifery community and create space for healing. I intend to support our team in building relationships, authentically listening, and creating opportunities for a shared vision across all midwifery professions. I intend to center those who have been most marginalized by the medicalization of birth and the alignment with white supremacist and patriarchal health care structures in these conversations. I intend to be true to my (our) values throughout the process, including resisting pressure to adhere to traditional academic structures and ensuring that what we are creating is in service to those most impacted by harm. Lastly, I intend to ensure that our team’s shared intention is what we will use to ground ourselves in every step of this journey.
Clare Sherley, DNP, CNM, FACNM
The midwifery profession has for too long been dominated by white nurses. White nurses who denigrated and actively marginalized the midwives who practiced and handed down midwifery knowledge long before nursing and nurses existed. This shattering of the traditional midwife’s role in society and the intentional rift created by nurses within the midwifery profession has never been addressed in a meaningful way. This rift has created a separation in how and where we practice, how and where we learn, and how and for whom we advocate. What we know is that midwifery saves lives. What we know is that cultural congruency saves lives. What we know is that modern midwifery was cultivated to serve white women serving white women. What we know is that there are inexcusable racial disparities in perinatal outcomes. What we know is that midwifery is the answer. What we know is that we need to cultivate midwifery that serves Black and Brown midwives serving Black and Brown birthing people.
That we need to cultivate midwifery that serves Queer and Trans midwives serving Queer and Trans birthing people. What we know is that everybody deserves a midwife regardless of the outcome of their pregnancies, or whether their bodies ever become pregnant. My intention is to find the places where midwifery overlaps, supports, honors, upholds, advocates, disseminates, and grows together. To learn: What does that look like? What could that look like? What do midwives need in order to obtain this level of shared experience, support, advocacy, and growth? What do we need to heal? What do we need to grow stronger together? My intention is seek answers to these questions and the ones that I have not yet thought to ask. My intention is to follow the lead of the midwives doing the work of midwifery in a world where midwifery needs more than it has or is right now.