Birth Roots Community Midwifery

02/24/2026

Take 10 minutes to complete the intake survey of the Preeclampsia Registry and add your pregnancy experience to preeclampsia research efforts. Whether you have had preeclampsia, had a loved one who experienced it, or just want to contribute your pregnancy history to improve outcomes, everyone has a role they can play to improve research by, for, and about Black and Brown moms. The vast majority of people who participate in clinical trials are white, so there simply is not enough research about how preeclampsia affects Black and Brown women, or the different way in which we experience maternal healthcare. We deserve better. The Take Ten campaign is a call-to-action to our resilient community of Black women.

Ten minutes of your time ensures that communities of color are better represented, informed, and equipped to save the lives of future Black and Brown mothers. These are our daughters, our nieces, our granddaughters, our sisters, our friends – and they deserve better pregnancy outcomes through research that supports and represents their distinct experiences.

Learn more about our Take 10 campaign here: www.preeclampsia.org/take10

02/24/2026

02/20/2026

February isn’t over yet! We are still here, honoring and celebrating ❤️🖤💚

Midwifery in the US owes its continued existence to the legacy of the grand midwives that helped bring so much life into this world under the most difficult of circumstances during slavery and beyond.

Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey are three women whose names we also uphold this month. These three enslaved women who were abused via non-consensual and non-anesthetized medical experiments by the “Father of Gynecology” Dr. J. Marion Sims. We honor Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey as the Mothers of Gynecology.

Today, decolonizing birth and reproductive health takes on many forms, and is a necessary component of anti-racist solidarity and celebration of Black history.

There is so much more to say about Black healers and Black resistance in the context of midwifery. And always so much more to learn and grow and support.

If you’re looking to support ongoing efforts for and a great place to donate is the Mothers of Gynecology Monument: anarchalucybetsey.org

02/20/2026

I see this in my practice frequently. Lots of folks don’t know where to go for care, or when to go for care, or don’t feel safe with the options that feel most accessible.
Yet home birth is safest when we have a chance to start care earlier in pregnancy, and to start nourishing the birthing person with support, education, and opportunities to check on them with labs and monitor the pregnancy early.
I field questions from folks all the time about where to go and frequently direct them to community clinics and hospital-based practices, or help them get started with home birth care wherever they’re at in the pregnancy.
Everyone deserves access to respectful care and quality resources at all stages of the journey.

Early prenatal care improves the chances of having a healthy pregnancy and baby. But a new federal report shows it’s been on the decline.

The share of U.S. births to women who began prenatal care in the first trimester dropped from 78.3% in 2021 to 75.5% in 2024, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Read more: https://abcnews.visitlink.me/v3HPOn

02/20/2026

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I went looking for graphic intraoperative C-section images on Black mothers.

I couldn’t find them.

Not because they don’t exist but because medicine has failed to document Black bodies with the same care, visibility, and respect.

That absence is part of obstetric violence.

This is a real, systemic absence, and it says a lot about whose bodies are considered “educational,” “acceptable,” or even visible in medicine.

Medical education has historically centered white bodies as the default.

Most surgical textbooks, atlases, and teaching archives were built using white patients, often without consent, and that bias continues today.

So when clinicians document or publish mostly white skin, it’s treated as “neutral” while darker skin is treated as “complicated,” “harder to see,” or simply ignored.

That affects what gets photographed, archived, and shared.

Black women have very good reason to be cautious about their bodies being used in medical imagery.

Enslaved women were experimented on without anesthesia.

Henrietta Lacks’ cells were taken without consent.

Ongoing obstetric violence exists today.

And understandably theres also resistance to “let us photograph your open body for education.”

The problem is that medicine never replaced that exploitation with ethical, consent-based representation.

Because medicine never adapted its teaching to dark skin, clinicians:
❌ Miss complications
❌ Underestimate pain
❌ Dismiss symptoms
❌ Can’t distinguish redness
❌ Miss bruising
❌ Miss inflammation
❌ Miss hemorrhage cues

And then those same bodies are excluded from “educational” visuals because they don’t fit the white-centered visual language of medicine.

When Black mothers don’t see themselves:
👉🏾 They’re told their pain is “normal”
👉🏾 Their scars are called “ugly” or “keloids” instead of surgical trauma
👉🏾 Their complications are missed
👉🏾 Their births are erased

Representation isn’t aesthetic.

It’s life-saving medical necessity.

-Love,
Flor Cruz

02/20/2026

If you’ve been impacted by preeclampsia, this survey is for you!

Take 10 minutes to complete the intake survey of the Preeclampsia Registry and add your pregnancy experience to preeclampsia research efforts. Whether you have had preeclampsia, had a loved one who experienced it, or just want to contribute your pregnancy history to improve outcomes, everyone has a role they can play to improve research by, for, and about Black and Brown moms. The vast majority of people who participate in clinical trials are white, so there simply is not enough research about how preeclampsia affects Black and Brown women, or the different way in which we experience maternal healthcare. We deserve better. The Take Ten campaign is a call-to-action to our resilient community of Black women.

Ten minutes of your time ensures that communities of color are better represented, informed, and equipped to save the lives of future Black and Brown mothers. These are our daughters, our nieces, our granddaughters, our sisters, our friends – and they deserve better pregnancy outcomes through research that supports and represents their distinct experiences.

Learn more about our Take 10 for Preeclampsia campaign here: https://www.preeclampsia.org/take10

02/19/2026

Happy to share that our very own midwife was selected as the ISAPN - Illinois Society for Advanced Practice Nursing Member of the Month. Advocacy and community are at the heart of this practice, and we are grateful to be part of a professional nursing org that celebrates APRNs like this q***r midwife!

Meet our February ISAPN Member of the Month: Corinne Westing, CNM, APRN-FPA. Corinne Westing

From honoring birth as a lived experience to advocating for equitable healthcare access, Corinne’s work reflects the heart of midwifery and advanced practice nursing.

Read Corinne's full story and join us in celebrating APRN leadership in Illinois: isapn.enpnetwork.com/nurse-practitioner-news/226922-isapn-member-of-the-month-corinne-westing

02/19/2026

Honored to receive some lovely feedback recently. Humane, empathic care for pregnancy and birth should be the norm!

And we love to welcome folks transferring care. You deserve to feel safe, heard, and supported to make decisions for yourself and your family—and to be surrounded by calm and confidence during one of the biggest events of your life.

At any stage of your journey, we welcome you to schedule a consultation and see if Birth Roots is the right fit for you 💗