✴ What It Means When a White Woman Talks About Decolonizing Birth

Introduction: Wombs of the World’s Racial Justice Work (#BMHW25)

Wombs of the World grows with the recognition that maternal health is deeply shaped by race, colonial history, and systemic inequality. From the U.S. to Tanzania, Ecuador, and Mexico, we have witnessed how Black, Brown, and Indigenous women around the world are disproportionately mistreated, ignored, or harmed in childbirth-while their traditional knowledge is often overlooked or appropriated.

We believe birth is a social justice issue. Black women in the UK and U.S. are three to four times more likely to die from childbirth-related causes than white women. In many countries, traditional midwives are criminalized, while Western clinical practices-often modeled on colonial-era systems-are prioritized. Around the globe, birthing people are being failed by institutions never designed with them in mind.

Our approach is twofold: to preserve and amplify Indigenous and ancestral birth knowledge and to train birthworkers to deliver culturally grounded, trauma-informed, evidence-based care that restores dignity, autonomy, and respect in the birth process.

Through immersive, cross-cultural education, we connect contemporary doulas and midwives with traditional birthkeepers as students and partners in solidarity. Our programs generate income for local communities, offer scholarships for birthworkers of color, and invest in systemic change-like the upcoming Karatu Gentle Birth Initiative in Tanzania, which will train clinical staff in respectful maternity care and establish a vertical birth room rooted in ancestral practices and psychological safety.

We’ve designed every part of our model-from our affiliate revenue program to our global summits-to center equity, economic empowerment, and representation. More than 95% of our Foundation’s funds go directly into programming. We compensate traditional midwives as educators, invest in local infrastructure, and build pathways for BIPOC leadership at every level.

What began as a personal venture blending my love for travel and birthwork has evolved into a mission centered on justice. To reimagine maternal health systems, we must first understand the foundations they were built upon. Only then can we dismantle and rebuild-centering the voices and leadership of those most impacted. This is the heart of our work: restoring birth to its rightful place as a source of power, dignity, and belonging.

Why Birth Needs Decolonizing

Since 2018, I have been working in global maternal health-sitting in circles with traditional Maasai midwives in Tanzania, Indigenous parteras in Ecuador, elder midwives in Mexico, and birthworkers from across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Each carries knowledge that is sacred, embodied, and rooted in generations of practice.

So what does it mean when I, a white woman, talk about decolonizing birth?

It means honoring both respect and responsibility. I sit with traditional midwives, yes-but also with the diverse group of birthworkers who travel with us. And within those groups, there can be just as much cultural difference as there is between us and the countries we visit.

That space-complex and dynamic-is where real learning happens. Creating space for birthworkers with different identities, ideologies, and lived experiences has reshaped how I understand solidarity.

How do we foster shared learning without replicating the very harms we seek to unlearn? How do we hold complexity in a way that deepens our collective responsibility?

These are questions I ask not just of our programs, but of myself.

Because part of this work-especially for white women like me-is taking accountability for the legacies we carry. The legacy between white women and BIPOC women doesn’t disappear in a healing space. It lives in our bodies. It lives in the room. We must meet it with care, structure, and a commitment to integrity.

Most participants arrive with deep humility. Many join our programs precisely because they want to learn directly from those who carry ancestral wisdom. But white women, often unconsciously, are accustomed to speaking first, being centered, and taking up space. BIPOC birthworkers may not have had the experience of safety or openness in such settings. That is not a personal failure-it is a cultural reality. This is why we offer intentional structure: pre-trip trainings in cultural humility, tools for reflection, and facilitation practices that foster collective trust.

In practice, decolonizing birth means reckoning with the systems that have shaped our modern understanding of childbirth. It means dismantling the narratives of superiority and scarcity that underpin white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, and clinical extraction.

What We Lose When We Medicalize Birth

To be clear: I am not opposed to medical advancement. I know that interventions save lives. And I’ve seen firsthand what happens when there are too few resources-clinics without NICUs, without oxygen, without a safe place for a baby born too soon.

But we must ask: where has dignity gone?

Birth is not just a clinical event. It is a sacred threshold. When we reduce it to a crisis to be managed, we lose the stories, the rituals, the human wisdom. We lose trust in the birthing person’s knowing. We lose the willingness to listen.

Western obstetrics was not designed around care. It was designed for control, risk management, and efficiency. But birth is not a factory. And mothers are not problems to be solved.

In the U.S., we are conditioned to expect catastrophe. Birth is framed as inherently dangerous. Our bodies are framed as defective. These narratives are reinforced through media, hospital policy, insurance structures, and social norms.

Yet in many of the places I’ve visited, I’ve seen something different. Not because resources are abundant. But because birth is still held by women. By community. With presence. With respect.

We don’t have to choose between safety and sacredness. We can have both. We can design birth spaces that are both well-equipped and welcoming.

But the current systems are not set up to do that. Obstetric violence happens quietly-behind closed doors, through policy, through indifference. And it’s not always the result of malice-but of generations of criminalizing midwives, devaluing women, and under-resourcing care.

In some regions, cesarean rates have surpassed 90%. Not because mothers want it. But because they have no other option. A woman is dying due to childbirth complications every 2 seconds.

This is why Wombs of the World exists. Because birth is political. It is systemic. It reflects who we value and how we care. Our mission is to mobilize a global force of birthworkers ready to shift the culture-from the inside out.

Learning from Traditional Midwives

An elder we work with in Ecuador, Tatie Oscar, once said: “For generations, we had to hide our knowledge-tuck it away, keep it safe from outsiders who couldn’t see its value. But now, the only way to protect that knowledge is to share it. To plant it. To help it grow.”

That is what we aim to do. Create space for traditional midwives to teach on their own terms-without translation, without validation from a Western lens. These midwives are not relics. They are systems holders. Their wisdom is living, evolving, and rooted in deep care and connection to the land and the cosmos.

The practices they carry are not novel. They are ancient. And they are increasingly validated by science-not because science makes them legitimate, but because truth echoes.

Yet, in many places, these traditions have been sidelined in the name of progress. Institutional policies that prevent women from eating in labor are not based in current evidence. They are remnants of outdated models. They reflect a larger disregard for ancestral ways.

This isn’t about idealizing tradition or rejecting medical advancement. It’s about remembering that observation, community, and embodied care are essential forms of wisdom.

Across countries and cultures, the tools may vary, but the essence of birthwork is remarkably consistent. Birth is rhythmic. Relational. Meaningful.

When we witness these traditions, we are not collecting them. We are being entrusted.

Walking Arm in Arm: White Accountability in Birthwork

When I first began this work, I believed I had done the preparation. I had a degree in anthropology and sociology. I had engaged in years of reflection around privilege and power.

But intention is not the same as impact. And awareness is not the same as accountability.

I thought my role would be to create meaningful, ethical travel programs. But the work kept deepening. I began to understand that this wasn’t just about learning birth practices. It was about systems. Solidarity. Repair.

And that required me to shift: from observation to relationship. From curiosity to commitment.

As a white woman, I had to examine not only what I was doing, but how I was doing it. Who was speaking? Who was centered? Who was shaping the story?

Even language I once leaned on-like "anthropology"-began to feel insufficient. Too often, it implies study by "othering". And I want to be in relationship.

This work is about integrity. And legacy. White women have historically chosen comfort over courage. We must choose differently.

So I ask myself: How do I help break that cycle? Sometimes it means stepping back. Sometimes it means standing firm. But always, it means showing up. Listening.

And demanding reparations.

Because birth justice is inseparable from racial justice. And racial justice is inseparable from healing.

And healing is the heartbeat of this work.

Reclaiming Reverence: A Vision for Birth and Beyond

At the heart of all of this is the understanding that birth deserves sacredness. And that fear has no place at the center of birth.

Too many are taught to fear labor. To expect their bodies to fail. To be grateful for whatever happens, no matter how disempowering it felt.

This fear breeds silence. Silence around miscarriage. Postpartum mental health. Menstruation. Menopause. We are taught to hide what makes us human-what connects us.

But that silence isn’t accidental. It is a tool. A tool used by systems that fear the power of women’s bodies, stories, and collective care.

But something is shifting. We are remembering. Reclaiming. Activating. And with the technology of 2025, we are gathering in ways our ancestors only dreamed of.

And birth is the front line. Because how we birth is how we begin.

If we can reclaim dignity, autonomy, and cultural knowledge in birth, we can ripple that care outward.

This is what Wombs of the World is building. A return to human-centered care. To community-led solutions. To shared wisdom.

Birth is not just a moment. It is a mirror.

A Final Word

To decolonize birth, we must first understand the systems we’ve inherited. That means studying history. Examining our roles within it. And committing to rebuild with intention.

This is not the responsibility of BIPOC women. It is the responsibility of all of us-especially those with power and privilege.

That is why education is at the center of what we do. Every Wombs of the World training is grounded in social justice. We explore birth as a cultural construct and a political act.

From there, we zoom out. We write a new story.

One of global awakening. One of mother-centered revolution. One of rebirth.