Replay - EBB 152 Shafia Monroe on Traditional Midwifery, Spirituality, and Advocacy

Today, I am so excited to present to you a replay of one of our most popular episodes on the Evidence Based Birth® podcast, and that is an episode from 2020 with special guest, Shafia Monroe. Before we get started with the replay, I wanted to let you know that this episode contains discussion of Black infant and maternal mortality related to racism, slavery and Jim Crow, and racism that continues to affect people’s lives today.   Shafia gave us such an inspirational episode in 2020, that we wanted to bring it back for those of you who are new to EBB, or for those of you who’ve listened to it before. Whenever I listen to this episode, it fills me with a sense of awe for Black traditional midwives, and it gives me hope while it reminds me of the tenacity of the human spirit. So join us today as we replay this episode and you go on a storytelling journey with Mama Shafia Monroe about spirituality and traditional midwives. In today’s podcast episode, we’re going to talk with Shafia Monroe about the role of the traditional midwife.

Shafia Monroe is a public health professional, a midwife, a motivational speaker, founder of the International Center for Traditional Childbearing, or ICTC, which was the first US-based black midwives and doulas professional organization. Shafia is also an author, infant mortality prevention specialist, doula trainer, and president of Doula Ready, LLC. Since 2002, she has trained thousands of people in doula trainings, with one-third of them going on to become midwives. In 2012, Shafia received her Master of Public Health from Walden University. In 2014, she opened Shafia Monroe Consulting, a cultural competency training service. Shafia has received numerous awards for her work, including the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Midwife Hero Award.

In this podcast, Ms. Monroe discusses the history of Black traditional midwifery and incorporating spirituality into birth work. We also talk about Shafia’s experience becoming a traditional Black midwife, along with her passion for advocacy in birth work through her doula program and her community.

**Trigger Content Warning: This podcast episode discusses racism and infant loss.** Resources

• Learn more about Shafia Monroe and SMC Full Circle Doula Birth Companion Training here (https://shafiamonroe.com/).
• Follow Shafia on Instagram and Black Midwife Cooking here (https://www.instagram.com/shafiamonroe/).  
• Follow Shafia on Twitter here (https://twitter.com/Shafia_SMC).
• Follow Shafia on Facebook here (https://www.facebook.com/shafiamonroeconsulting/). 
• Click here (https://evidencebasedbirth.com/birth-justice/) to see the Evidence Based Birth® list of Birth Justice Resources, including research on racism and maternal health.
• More resources are listed on the the blog post at https://www.evidencebasedbirth.com/152