How midwifery could change birth for the better | Nashira Baril | TEDxRoxbury

Community-based midwifery is the most traditional way to give birth. Reintegrating midwifery in the community is a paradigm shift from our last 100+ years of hospital-based obstetrics. Nashira Baril (she/her), a biracial Black ciswoman, is the daughter and great-granddaughter of midwives. She experienced the sacred care of community midwives at the home births of her siblings and of her own two children. These births transformed her worldview, putting her on a path to receive “the call” from elder midwife Dr. Jo-Anna Rorie, who first held the vision for a birth center in Roxbury in 1980.

With a master’s degree in Maternal & Child Health from Boston University School of Public Health and 20 years of experience designing and implementing public health strategies to advance racial equity, Nashira founded Neighborhood Birth Center in 2015. It is the first-of-its-kind community birth center in Boston, providing community midwifery to strategically address the maternal health crisis. Nashira lives with her family in the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston, the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Pawtucket, Massa-adchu-esset, Pokanoket, and Wampanoag people. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx