Today we’d like to introduce you to Jamarah Amani.
Jamarah, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I stand here on the shoulders of my grandmothers and mothers. My lineage is seven generations of firstborn daughters in the valiant south as far as anyone can remember back to enslavement in Louisiana.
Mama Cora, Mama Bea, MaDear, my grandmother, my mother, myself and my daughters. It is because of them that I am. It’s important to say the names of our ancestors. On my father’s side, I am the daughter of a Black Panther so the fight for justice is in my blood. His name is Earl Leverette and he was part of the Black Panther Party in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
A community organizer from the age of sixteen, I was politicized by my father’s story, reading the court transcript of the COINTELPRO setup (J. Edgar Hoover’s covert campaign to destroy Black organizations) on this new thing called “world wide web” (1995) in my high school library. From that moment, I dedicated my life to truth and to the freedom of my people.
I have worked with several organizations across the United States, the Caribbean and in Africa on various public health issues, including HIV prevention, infant mortality risk reduction, access to emergency contraception and access to midwifery care. I am currently the director of Southern Birth Justice Network, a 501(c)3 non- profit organization.
I have four children. I am a midwife. I came to midwifery through the path of social justice, through understanding the social determinants of health, that in order to be healthy we gotta get free. My work has been about disrupting the balance of power in whatever spaces I find myself. Advocating for access to better health services for women and families. I worked for organizations like the Black Infant Health Project in California and Sister love in Atlanta, listening to and learning from Black women. Seeing the need, seeing the gaps. I asked myself, just as one of Florida’s great ancestors Gladys Milton did, “why not me?” Why not be the one who stands in the gap?
What an honor to be chosen. I learned from elder midwives about birth goddesses and patience, what it means to support a mama with grace, how to maintain joy and self-care as a midwife. My elders gave me the story of the Black midwife, our legacy, which I carry in my heart always. So many beautiful aspects of midwifery. When I first came to Overtown, the “Harlem of the South,” it was because of Black Grandmidwives. It was because folks in Overtown wanted to talk about where the midwives went. Midwifery care is holistic, healing, and humanistic. It has rich herstory and legacy in communities of color.
My first baby was born in a hospital-based birth center with a nurse-midwife. I changed from a doctor to a midwife mid-pregnancy because I felt like the doc was rushing me in my prenatal appointments, not answering all my questions. The labor/birth was great, 9 hours, 2 pushes, no tears. But because my midwife was hospital-based, I didn’t have a lot of support from her postpartum. So I struggled A LOT with breastfeeding and had to find a lactation consultant. My second was with an ob in a hospital because I couldn’t find a midwife. I had a Doula who fought for me but I almost gave birth in the bathroom because I had a bitch of a nurse that I was hiding from. She kept telling me my baby might die if I didn’t stay in bed.
Also had a lot of interventions and felt traumatized by the experience even though it was a vaginal birth and breastfeeding was easy. Doulas stand in the gap, making sure clients’ voices are heard and medical information is communicated so that clients understand and can make their own best choices for themselves and their babies. My Doula literally stood in the doorway to protect me.
From there, I decided I would only birth at home. After two home water births with licensed midwives here in Miami, I can say it is the right birth environment for me. I felt comfortable, relaxed, supported and best of all slept in my own bed and clothes, eating my own food. On my terms.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Pregnancy, birth, postpartum healing, breastfeeding should be given so much more respect because we are literally sacrificing our bodies to create another human. It is amazing and powerful and scary with crazy consequences. Our society is so dismissive of pregnant people and our concerns. This lack of concern is silencing and shaming. It’s a form of control and hatred of women.
Birth trauma and obstetric violence are real because the process can be so traumatizing. I have had women tell me they literally felt raped while giving birth. By their doctor! And birth is literally the gateway of life and death. This is close to my heart. Especially when Black women are dying 4x as much as white women from giving birth. And the U.S. is #60 in the world for maternal/child health. Something is wrong with the system.
In Miami-Dade county, Black babies are more than twice as likely to die in the first year of life as white babies. These are human rights violations. Racism, poverty and the for-profit health care system are impacting life and death in our communities.
Please tell us about Southern Birth Justice Network.
Our walk is rooted in the Reproductive Justice movement; it must be innovative, autonomous, and led by women of color. At Southern Birth Justice Network, we aim to expand Birth Justice with storytelling, popular education, and community organizing to improve access to midwifery and Doula care. We examine the roots of inequality and injustice in relation to childbirth. Armed with this knowledge, and with our beloved community, we can demand and create the type of change we desire when it comes to our reproductive health.
In spite of an increasingly violent medical environment, midwifery care reclaims space to have safe, gentle, and powerful birth experiences. Bodily autonomy matters. Trauma-informed care matters. Midwifery care is holistic, healing, and humanistic. It has rich herstory, legacy, and roots in communities of color. Our vision at sbjn is to make this care accessible and central to all.
People, especially Black, Brown, immigrant, indigenous, queer, transgender, low-income, young parents and other marginalized communities. What’s really special is that Miami is the birthplace of the Birth Justice framework!
What’s your outlook for the industry in our city
I think Miami is a great place for midwives because people love having babies here. Also, home birth and birth centers are really growing here, with midwives doing about 2% of births in the state, which has doubled since the midwifery laws were re-established in the 1990’s.
Florida has some of the best training for midwives in the country and laws that allow for Medicaid and insurance reimbursement, which makes the profession sustainable. Cities in South Florida can do more to facilitate collaboration between perinatal providers – OBs, nurses, midwives, etc to ensure the best care for birthing families. Also, Doula care (Doulas are non-medical birth coaches) needs to be reimbursed by all insurances as well so that every birthing person has all the team support they need!
Pricing:
- Yoni steam $100
- Doula service $600 (including two prenatal visit, birth and 1 postpartum visit)
- Doula training (to become a Birth Justice Doula) sliding scale $300-600
- Midwifery care for the childbearing year – complete package $6500
Contact Info:
- Website: www.southernbirthjustice.org
- Phone: 786-503-1002
- Email: midwifejamarah@gmail.com
- Instagram: @southernbirthjustice
- Facebook: @southernbirthjustice
- Twitter: @birthjustice
- Other: www.openhandsmidwifery.com
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