​DECOLONIZING BIRTH™

​A Decolonization Clinics™ Session

​What would it take to restore birth to women, families, and communities?

​Birth is one of the most fundamental human experiences, and yet the way we understand, prepare for, experience, and support birth has been profoundly shaped by systems, institutions, economics, culture, and inherited beliefs.

​Decolonizing Birth™ is an all-day clinic for examining those conditions and asking a bigger question:

​What would have to change for women to have greater knowledge, agency, choice, and support in how they give birth?

​This is not a class telling women how they should give birth. It is not an argument for one birth setting over another. And it is not about romanticizing the past.

​It is an opportunity to examine how we got here, what we have inherited, what has been disrupted or lost, and what we may want to reclaim or redesign.

​THE CLINIC

​We will move through four stages:

​TRIAGE — What is happening?
We begin with the current state of birth: maternal and infant outcomes, cesarean birth, breastfeeding, access to midwives and doulas, the availability and affordability of home birth and community-based care, and the conditions shaping the choices available to women.

​EXAMINE — How did we get here?
We investigate the history and evolution of birth care, including the medicalization and institutionalization of birth, the changing role of midwives, the disruption of community birth knowledge, and the particular history of Black women and birth workers.

​DIAGNOSE — What is producing the condition?
We look beneath the outcomes to identify the beliefs, systems, economic structures, capacities, and relationships shaping the birth experience.

​What does a mother need to prepare for the birth she desires?

​What does a midwife need to build a sustainable practice?

​What does a doula need to earn a living providing meaningful support?

​What would make home birth and community-based care financially and practically accessible?

​What infrastructure does a community need to support women before, during, and after birth?

​DESIGN — What could we create instead?
We move from diagnosis to possibility.

​Together, we consider what it would take to build a more supportive birth ecosystem, one that expands women's knowledge and agency while strengthening the people, relationships, services, and economic structures that make those choices possible.

​Our framework:

​UNPACK → DEPROGRAM → DECONDITION → RECLAIM

​Because decolonization is not about returning to some imagined past. It is about becoming conscious of what we have inherited so that we can make more intentional decisions about what we carry forward.

​THE END GAME

​The goal is not simply to change how a woman thinks about birth.

​It is to consider how we change the conditions surrounding birth.

​What would it take for women to have the knowledge, resources, relationships, and support necessary to make informed decisions about their births?

​What would it take for midwives, doulas, lactation professionals, postpartum workers, and other birth workers to build sustainable livelihoods?

​What would it take for communities to have the infrastructure to support birth beyond the walls of an institution?

​The clinic ultimately asks us to imagine birth sovereignty:

​Women having meaningful agency over how, where, and with whom they give birth, and communities having the capacity to make those choices viable.

​This is not the end of the conversation.

​It is the beginning of the work.