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NACPM eAlert
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August 23, 2012
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Greetings!I hope you read in our August 8 e-Newsletter that as a first step in fulfilling NACPM's commitment to including the voices of women of color in all aspects of NACPM leadership and building faith and partnership with the community of midwives of color, the Board decided to expand its number of Directors from five to seven. These two new board positions will be filled by appointment of the Board with two women of color, who will then be able to run for re-election if they desire after their appointed terms are fulfilled. On behalf of the Board of Directors of NACPM, I am pleased to announce the appointment of these two new board members: Tanya Khemet of Sacramento, California and JayVon Muhammad of Beaufort, South Carolina. As you can see from their biographies below, both Tanya and JayVon bring significant experience, knowledge and commitment to the work of NACPM. We look forward to working with them as they begin their two-year board terms at our bi-annual in-person meeting in October. Best wishes, Suzy Myers, President
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Tanya Khemet, LM, IBCLC, MPH
 How I appear to the world: I am a Licensed Midwife, a Board Certified Lactation Consultant and recently completed my Master's degree in Public Health from San Jose State University. I count myself blessed as being the mother of three beautiful girls who were all born at home. I spend my days working in a Federally Qualified Health Center in Sacramento that is committed to the compassionate care of low-income families in a multidisciplinary setting. I provide women's health services to women and teens under the protocols of the Comprehensive Perinatal Services Program, in which we weave prenatal care with health education, nutrition and psychosocial services.
I come from a family tradition of midwives, stretching back at least three generations. My grandmother and her aunties were midwives practicing in rural Jamaica. My mother, aunts and uncles remember their mother and great aunts travelling along country roads on dark nights accompanied only by the all-seeing owls. I was trained at Seattle Midwifery School, and apprenticed with midwives in Seattle, Senegal and Jamaica. I am committed to the revitalization of the tradition of midwifery within the African American community, and the eradication of the ethnic disparities in perinatal health outcomes. It is my interest in preventative and complementary health, especially maternal and child health, and my desire to work with the medically underserved, that compelled me to become a midwife.
I served as the clinic administrator and staff midwife of The Birthing Project Clinic for eight years, and was able to develop systems that streamlined the delivery of comprehensive care and captured the information that documented both the outcomes and the quality of that care. I also facilitated the creation of our childbirth education classes and centering program. I then became one of the founding mothers (hermanas de la luz) of Birth and Family Health Center of The Effort, which are women's health clinics housed in community health centers located in medically underserved areas of Sacramento and provide primary care, pediatrics, dental care and behavioral health. Birth and Family Health Centers primarily serve women who would otherwise have little or no prenatal care or reproductive health services, and does active outreach to women with substance abuse issues, the homeless and recently incarcerated women. The patients receive comprehensive care that weaves midwifery care with health education and social services; and have access to many programs that address their multi-faceted needs including substance abuse treatment and prevention, counseling and programs designed to prevent abuse and foster family cohesiveness.
It is my commitment to the care of the medically underserved that has propelled me to join the NACPM board. I strongly believe that the midwifery model can have a positive impact on the health of mothers, particularly those who are most at risk for poor birth outcomes. I would like to be involved in the work of increasing access to quality maternity care by supporting the work of Certified Professional Midwives. I also believe that midwives have historically been advocates in their communities and we must continue that tradition by organizing ourselves to work to preserve physiologic birth, promote the sustainability of our profession and fight for national standards that preserve the autonomy of childbearing women. For us to remain relevant we must address the barriers to practice, licensure and reimbursement, and support each other with clinical resources.
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JayVon Muhammad
 I am the owner of SistaGirl Midwifery, and Executive Director of Urban Midwifery, Inc., a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization founded in 2008. Urban Midwifery provides midwifery services, workshops, education, and other services to Black Women, and women from underserved (poor) communities. I am also the author of "Baby Mamas, A Midwife's Guide to Ending the Epidemic", and "The Birds & The Bees, Teaching our Daughter's the Truth about Sex, Relationships, and Marriage".
A Married mother of three, I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area (California). I hold licensure as a midwife in Texas and South Carolina, and also national certification as a Certified Professional Midwife through the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM). I have more than ten years of experience in women's healthcare, and I am a homebirth advocate.
My midwifery career has been committed to improving the lives of black and brown women so that they can become healthy mamas, and in-turn have healthy babies. As Executive Director of Urban Midwifery I lead the Campaign Against the Normalization of the Baby Mama and the Black Fathers Stepping Up program. I have traveled to many countries studying similarities and differences in the practice of midwifery, including; Albania, Jamaica, Mexico and Canada. From 2008 - March of 2011 I worked as a staff midwife with the Sacramento Birthing Project Clinic, a clinic that serves low-income and under served women. While with the Sacramento Birthing Project Clinic, I was able to follow my passion, working to improve the unacceptably high infant mortality rates in the black community, and providing midwifery care to women (and their families).
In March 2011 I parted ways with the Sacramento Birthing Project and relocated to South Carolina where I recently opened a prenatal clinic in North Charleston to serve low-income and poor women. I participated in the live stream audience of the 2012 CPM Symposium. I found this conference different from the typical and historical conferences held for CPMs. This conference and agenda was one of the most progressive with regard to relative educational, legislative, and licensure information. After attending the conference live-stream, I accepted an invitation from the NACPM to join the Board. As a member of the NACPM Board I hope to further the practice and art of midwifery for all women, and to be a sincere, true, and hard-working representative for the midwives of color.
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Center banner photo credit: Walter Zamojski
Thank you, Colleen Donovan-Batson, for sharing MANA photos
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