Photo by Chris Ryan, courtesy TheSTL.com
Jamaa Birth Village founder Brittany "Tru" Kellman can explain her experience opening a midwifery clinic in the middle of a pandemic in one word: crazy.
She doesn't mean it in a bad way, though. As hospitals began treating COVID-19 patients, postponing non-essential visits, and prepping for worst-case scenarios of overcrowding, pregnant women started seeking other options.
"Mostly all home birth midwives and community-based midwives got a huge influx of clients who had already considered mostly midwifery care. In this society, [at-home births] are not really supported in a sense, so it was more than likely already in the back of their heads," she says. "Then once this [pandemic] happened they were like, 'Oh, that's my decision.'"
After opening on June 19, Kellman's new Equal Access Midwifery Clinic, in Ferguson, received so many more clients than expected, she put out a call last week to increase her five-person staff of doulas. "It has been something we didn't foresee having to do in our first 45 days of being open, adding doulas to our team," she says.
Photo by Chris Ryan, courtesy TheSTL.com
Jamaa Birth Village was first founded in 2015 to provide pregnant women with resources. Now the village and its new clinic provide low-risk pregnant women access to midwife care "no matter their insurance type, employment status, or zip code," Kellman says. Its prices are on a sliding scale basis. Kellman previously found that in the St. Louis area, many clinics weren't able to provide the sort of care low-risk women needed, because they were understaffed or underfunded, so their focus often went toward high-risk patients.
Missouri's first certified Black midwife, Kellman hopes to use this clinic to address the disparity in medical care between Black and white mothers. Black women are three to four times more likely to die during childbirth than white mothers, according to the CDC. They're also more likely to give birth via C-section.
Kellman experienced this firsthand when she received unnecessary C-sections to deliver her first two sons. When she gave birth to her third child at home in the care of a midwife, she found her calling.
Photo by Chris Ryan, courtesy TheSTL.com
"There were not enough midwives in the community to actually answer to the level of care Black women need," Kellman says. "Experiencing that as a Black mom, and going on to provide care as a midwife, I knew that the solution was for us to have a space for us, by us, stack with women of color or allied health professionals who specialize in care for women through a culturally congruent lens to ensure that they have risk-appropriate care that addresses their emotional, physical, and maternal health needs."
The new clinic's building was donated, and its equipment and furnishings were bought through community donations. "When we put out the call to the community, they crushed it. We didn't even make it to our seven-day deadline of raising money," Kellman says. "It was an outpouring of support from all over the world." The clinic's doors are open to any women who need it, Kellman says. When clients walk in, their shoulders drop and it's evident they feel safe in the space, Kellman says. "The community did that."
Although the clinic's opening was pushed back amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Jamaa Birth Village is now doing virtual check-ups whenever possible, as well as providing doorstep delivery with prenatal and baby care items for those who need it, along with rental and food assistance.
But it's not the clinic or the work she's put into it that Kellman is most proud of. It's the vivaciousness of the moms who walk through the door.
"These women are going through so much with this pandemic and being pregnant and being Black in a time that racial strife is so high," she says. "And then to have the fear of the pandemic, to have finances being affected in their household, their children not being at school, and then just the regular, natural, physiological changes in their body being pregnant—they're going through a lot."
