Jamaa Birth Village will open midwifery sites across Missouri: 'The need is there'

Jamaa Birth Village plans to open satellite midwifery birthing locations across Missouri next year. Patients can receive midwifery and doula care and social support services in areas with few options for maternity care.
Over 40% of Missouri’s 114 counties are considered maternity care deserts, according to a recent March of Dimes report. Most of those 48 counties are rural and do not have access to obstetrics care or birthing hospitals.

Jamaa Birth Village is piloting a midwifery satellite program that will offer prenatal and postpartum care next year to pregnant people near Springfield, Columbia and the Bootheel area to help reduce the health disparities among Black women living in rural areas. The midwifery clinic will also pilot the satellite program in St. Louis.

The services can help bridge the maternity care gap in rural communities where accessibility and affordability is an issue for Black families, said Okunsola Amadou, founder and CEO of Jamaa Birth Village, a Black midwifery and maternal health care center in Ferguson.