Melanated Group Midwifery Care: Centering the Voices of the Black Birthing Community

Abstract

Access to safe and dignified pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum experiences is a fundamental right for all pregnant and postpartum people. In the United States, systemic racism fuels distrust and disengagement in a health care system that continues to dehumanize the Black community. The respectful maternity care literature explains how these systemic, structural, and institutional failings produce maternal health disparities and expose a pattern whereby Black women receive less adequate maternity care. The implementation of trustworthy policies and practices is urgently needed because no single intervention has or will substantially reduce maternal disparities. The purpose of this article is to describe a multicomponent maternity care innovation, Melanated Group Midwifery Care (MGMC). MGMC was codesigned with community partners and is responsive to the needs and desires of Black women, making MGMC a culturally adapted and patient-centered model. Racial concordance among care providers and patients, group prenatal care, perinatal nurse navigation, and 12 months of in-home postpartum doula support are 4 evidence-based interventions that are bundled in MGMC. We posit that a model that restructures maternity care to increase health system accountability and aligns with the needs and desires of Black pregnant and postpartum people will increase trust in the health care system and result in better clinical, physical, emotional, and social outcomes.