news & events

This year, the Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery has coined the metaphor “Nurturing The Soil of Midwifery” to encapsulate our vision for supporting and uplifting the advancement of [...]

FAM uses the metaphor of “nourishing the soil of midwifery” to describe how to advance midwifery. As a doula and board member of FAM, this represents supporting midwives – not only through [...]

We thank you… The Board of Directors for the Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery (FAM) thanks you for your support and engagement! With your help, we can cultivate equitable and [...]

September 16 – 17th, 2022 Foundational doula trainer and midwife Shafia Monroe hosted the 1st Annual SMC Doula Conference in Portland, Oregon this September. The Foundation for the [...]

FAM proud to sponsor and attend the Alabama Black Midwives Conference                               May 20th – [...]

Happy Giving Tuesday! Over the past 9 days we have discussed some of the different pieces to the puzzle to create giving and building a community for midwifery and those in birth. You can help [...]

What builds community more than for people to circle around a new mother who has added a new community member? This article from Parents magazine zeros in on practical ways to help and says [...]

As FAM supporters, you know the importance of our work to advance midwifery in North America. You can further FAM’s mission by sharing information with your clients, many of whom would be [...]

Company The Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery Position Volunteer Board Member Company Description  The Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery (FAM) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit [...]

Pre-and postpartum support is essential! Developing a network of individuals who can assist you with personal and household tasks has proven to reduce stress and aid in a mothers’ recovery. [...]

Birth can be an unpredictable journey, but your midwife was your guide for that journey. Whether it was to support you through your dream birth or help you pivot when the situation required a [...]

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”  -Vincent Van Gogh Merriam-Webster dictionary describes the butterfly effect as a property of chaotic systems by which small [...]

Have you ever noticed when you tell someone a story from your life, they often share a story about their life with you? There are many benefits to sharing our stories (good or bad) with our [...]

Join Shades of Blue in bringing awareness to Black Maternal Mental Health. You can see a list of their upcoming events here: https://www.shadesofblueproject.org/upcoming-events You can order a [...]

Thank you to the following organizations for sponsoring our screening of the documentary, Chocolate Milk  

Can you believe that December will be here tomorrow? It will also be, #GivingTuesday! Wrapping up our feature series on our grantees, please meet: National Black Midwives Alliance (NBMA), a FAM [...]

Two days to go, til’ #GivingTuesday! Getting excited? We certainly are. Our goal was to post daily for the 9 days leading up to #GivingTuesday, each day highlighting the work of each of our [...]

Hey  there, we hope you’re enjoying our feature series, where we’ve been highlighting the work of all 9 of our grantees leading up to #GivingTuesday on December 1st.Next up, with 3 days away from [...]

We’re getting close… only 4 days left until #GivingTuesday! Today, we’d like to promote the work of the Birthing People Foundation, a FAM Community Movement Builder. Birthing People Foundation [...]

What would happen if crowdsourcing and midwifery had a baby during the pandemic? The result would be Where’s My Midwife?, a community mapping project linking midwives trained in out-of-hospital [...]

Did you know that less than 5% of established birth centers in the U.S. are led by people of color? With 7 days away until #GivingTuesday on December 1st, we are pleased to introduce you to Birth [...]

Can you believe we’re already 6 days away on our journey to #GivingTuesday? To re-cap, #GivingTuesday is a global day of giving which happens annually on December 1, 2020. During each of the nine [...]

Today, we continue our countdown to #GivingTuesday! With only 8 days away, we’d like to introduce you to Indigenous Women Rising, an organization that creates the space for indigenous people to [...]

Today kicks off our nine-day countdown to #GivingTuesday, the annual global celebration of generosity which happens this year on December 1, 2020. During each of the nine days leading up to [...]

The recent allegations of forced hysterectomies in ICE detention centers is the most recent entry in the United States’ long history of racist, coercive reproductive abuse. Overwhelmingly, the [...]

On August 3, the board of directors stepped down following discord regarding MANA and FAM’s governance. MANA immediately began to source and recruit new board members, and has appointed a [...]

Letter from FAM Executive Director Tamara Wrenn Birthing Resilience As a result of the pandemic and the ongoing racial injustice, our nation has been hit with unprecedented challenges. For those [...]

In this newsletter Letter from FAM Executive Director Tamara Wrenn & FAM 2020 Grants Reflecting on the current moment: Black Lives Matter FAM News: Elections, Spring fundraising recap Board [...]

Birthing People Foundation empowers women of color/people of color by providing free and low cost training, education and certification pertaining to pregnancy, birth and postpartum.  Including [...]

National Black Midwives Alliance trains and organizes midwives to serve as advocates to address disparities in maternal health care that impact black birthing people. NBMA’s central goal is to [...]

Equity in Midwifery Education provides resources with a focus on disparities, social justice and preventing trauma in the midwifery profession. An equity focus means that Power and Privilege are [...]

Birth from The Earth, Inc. is a non-profit organization, steeped in education & empowerment.  Birth from the Earth’s mission is: “To activate and engage through education, [...]

On April 8, 2020, the Big Push for Midwives Campaign launched the Where’s My Midwife? community mapping tool to help connect midwives trained in out-of-hospital birth with people whose [...]

FAM is proud to announce the initial funding for a new Elephant Circle initiative: Defense of Midwives. This project will increase capacity among underrepresented attorneys to bring cases for [...]

In response to what Indigenous families need right now, Indigenous Women Rising is launching and piloting a donation based midwifery fund. The fund will focus on: Supporting access to home births [...]

The Birth Center Equity Fund was created to make birth center care an option for every person who wants it, by growing and sustaining birth centers led by Black, Indigenous, and other people of [...]

FAM provided additional funds for midwives to the COVID-19 Birth Worker Relief Fund which was initiated by the generous support of Tara Health Foundation. The purpose of this project is to [...]

With anger and grief over the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and too many others, the Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery unequivocally affirms that [...]

Nationwide, women of color are underrepresented as funders and as recipients of philanthropy, (NY Times: “Philanthropists Bench Women of Color, the M.V.P.s of Social Change”). At FAM, women of [...]

Welcome to the second issue of FAM’s newsletter. Our feature for this issue is a discussion of how FAM is operationalizing equity in order to achieve our vision for midwifery. In this newsletter [...]

Emerging Models of Midwifery During the COVID-19 Pandemic Webinar was held Friday, April 3. The first episode featured Seattle, Washington and Miami, Florida. Speakers: Jamarah Amani, LM Emily [...]

Black Maternal Health Week (April 11-17) Honoring Black Mamas During Black Maternal Health Week we will be centering Black mothers and recognizing their right to not only live, but thrive, [...]

MomsRising has featured our article on the role of midwifery care and community birth during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Read the article & share! MOMS RISING: Midwives on the front lines of [...]

LINK TO THE POLICY STATEMENT: Out-of-Hospital Birth and Pandemic Planning As the world grapples with what feels like a big shift in the universe, FAM would like to share our thoughts about the [...]

Welcome to FAM’s inaugural edition of Generations, our newsletter! Lift and rise with us as we engage with the issues that impact maternity care in North America with curiosity, compassion, and [...]

    Thank you to all the individuals and companies who made our Annual Silent Auction a success at the 2018 MANA Conference in Portland, Maine. And thank you to all the conference attendees who [...]

Applicant Organization: National Black Midwives Alliance. Miami, FL The Black Midwife Mentor program works to pair black midwifery students and preceptors together in order to establish pivotal [...]

Applicant Organization: California Association of Midwives. Coarsegold, CA CAM will develop and implement an exam preparation program in order to facilitate an increase in the enrollment and [...]

Applicant Organization: Center for Indigenous Midwifery. Olympia, WA  The Salish Seas Indigenous Birthworker Gathering and community day included tribal members along with family health and [...]

Applicant Organization: Equity in Midwifery Education. Leavenworth, WA Equitymidwifery.org aims to amplify the voices and perspectives of midwives and aspiring midwives of color and serve as a [...]

Applicant Organization: Birthing People Foundation. Los Angeles, CA Birthing People Foundation addresses the alarming disparities in outcomes for birthing people of color and those from other [...]

Applicant Organization: Chocolate Milk Café, Yonkers, NY Chocolate Milk Café is designed to provide education, support, resources and a safe space in which to collectively gather on a regular [...]

Thank you to all the individuals and companies who made our Annual Silent Auction a success at the 2017 MANA Conference in Long Beach, California. And thank you to all the conference attendees [...]

FAM TREASURER The primary responsibilities of a FAM board member are: Take care of the organization by ensuring prudent use of all assets, and provide oversight for all activities to make certain [...]

Quite simply, without the support of FAM, the MANA Division of Research and its national birth registry—the MANA Statistics Project—would not exist. In 2003, at a time when the CPM credential was [...]

The Birth Place Lab (Coordinates FAM-funded projects) The Birth Place Lab, in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC, enables multi-disciplinary and community-based participatory research on access to [...]

From June 1 to June 16th an anonymous donor has pledged to match donations dollar-for-dollar up to $5,000. FAM is determined to give voice to birth equity in the United States. We invite you to [...]

Applicant Organization: Midwives Alliance of North America, Division of Research The Lancet series on midwifery confirms the positive effects of midwife-led care on the health of mothers and [...]

Applicant Organization: Midwives Alliance of North America, Division of Research The proposed project will capitalize on recent international attention received by MANA Stats by allowing Division [...]

Applicant Organization: Midwives Alliance of North America, Division of Research These funds would be used to hire, for a period of one year, a Data Doula Coordinator. The role of Data Doulas is [...]

Applicant Organization: Midwives Alliance of North America Birthing people in North America are continually given conflicting and often erroneous information about childbirth, normal physiologic [...]

Applicant Organization: Home Birth Summit Research and Data Taskforces We will produce a Midwifery Integration and Access State Report Card. Our color-coded, interactive data maps prove that [...]

Applicant Organization: Midwives Alliance of North America, Health Policy and Advocacy Division Midwives across the United States struggle with being reimbursed for their services. States have [...]

Applicant Organization: Midwives Alliance of North America, Division of Access and Equity The MANA Division of Research hosts the largest database in the country that collects prospective data on [...]

Applicant Organization: Midwives Alliance of North America, Division of Access and Equity Thanks to FAM Birth Trustees, the MANA Division of Access and Equity State Pilot Project was launched in [...]

Applicant Organization: Home Birth Summit Consumer Task Force The Giving Voice to Mothers study has collected new information on how experience of maternity care in the US is affected by race, [...]

Applicant Organization: Commonsense Childbirth, Inc. Quiero Entender provides for much-needed Spanish-language outreach and services to low income, non-English-speaking Latino women in need of [...]

Applicant Organization: California Association of Midwives Racial inequities in birth outcomes persist. And research shows that chronic stress, including racism and discrimination, negatively [...]

Applicant Organization: Ancient Song Doula Services Ancient Song Doula Services’ Midwifery Assistant Program (MAP) strives to increase the number of midwives of color to ultimately increase [...]

Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery Celebrate! Black History Month Honorees 2017 The history of African-American midwives serving their communities goes beyond the diaspora. Steeped in [...]

H.R. 1976 (originally H.R. 1054), the Access to Certified Professional Midwives Act, recently re-introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in May 2013, will open doors to full access to CPM [...]

The MANA Division of Research is currently moving towards a model of Annual Reporting of birth outcomes—in other words, our vision is that every year a paper would be published in the [...]

Capacity building is essential for the success of a future CPM study, which would triple the size of the MANA Statistics Project. Capacity- building projects include increased support staff (Data [...]

MANA believes that to best serve the needs of consumers, midwives and particularly those without equal access to education, information, or legislation, we must strengthen our communications team [...]

MEAC accreditation for CPM educational programs is integral to commitments defined in the US-MERA April 2014 meeting report. MEAC accreditation enables midwifery schools to participate in federal [...]

Mamatoto Village seeks to improve perinatal health outcomes for underserved and high-risk women and babies in the National Capital Region through continuation and extension of the Community [...]

After extensive review of literature and precedents, the multi-disciplinary HBS Collaboration Task Force from the Home Birth Summit (HBS) has developed model guidelines for coordination among [...]

Our Best Practice Toolkit for Midwifery Regulation and Licensure will be a user-friendly and audience-targeted web site repository of documents on midwifery education, competencies, scope of [...]

The JJ Way® is a midwifery model of care which has successfully reduced the incidence of low birth weight and premature babies among African-American and other minority women who are at greater [...]

The Grand Challenge, is a call to all midwives, birth workers, organizations, the birthing community, and institutions to “be the change” in addressing racial disparities in maternal and infant [...]

The Pregnancy Kitchen is a six-week nutrition education and prenatal care program for low- income minority women in Brooklyn, New York. By providing holistic, culturally relevant, and budget [...]

Apart from the Birth Trust, we offered a “Favorite Award” for the grantee that could garner the most votes for their project through social media platforms: We respectfully request funding to [...]

Midwives Alliance of North America Midwives Alliance is using strategic communications to elevate the discourse beyond “Is home birth safe?” to “How do we ensure safety by effectively integrating [...]

National Association of Certified Professional Midwives Every day in the U.S., women and babies suffer, even die, from the inherent irrationality and harmful practices of our current medical [...]

Home Birth Summit, Consumer Engagement & Research and Data Task Forces In the Listening to Mothers III study, women who delivered in hospitals reported feeling discriminated against when they [...]

Midwives Alliance of North America, Division of Research During the last ten years the MANA Division of Research has learned much, and many excellent documents have been developed reflecting [...]

Uzazi Village Uzazi Village was founded on a mission; to eliminate perinatal health disparities in communities of color. Founded by women of color to serve communities of color, we are driven to [...]

Midwives Alliance of North America, Division of Research Now that MANA Stats data collection is firmly established, we are requesting funding for a Master’s-level research assistant who will [...]

Addressing identified barriers to accreditation of midwifery schools MEAC research into the barriers to accreditation, has uncovered a number of exciting opportunities for programming [...]

Home Birth Summit Research and Data Task Force The US Birth Place Mapping study will link rates of home birth in each state to regulatory conditions for midwifery practice, access to [...]

Ancient Song Doula Services The Pregnancy Kitchen is a nutrition education, prenatal care and postpartum program for low-income minority women in Brooklyn and Bronx, New York. By providing [...]

Midwives Alliance of North America The Maternity Care Data Alliance (MCDA) is a coalition representing four of the organizations providing patient-centered maternity care in the U.S.: The [...]

Midwives Alliance of North America, Division of Research (MANA DOR) These funds will be used to keep the MANA Stats web system online, well maintained, and securely available for use by all [...]

The Big Push for Midwives Campaign The Big Push for Midwives Campaign is advancing its public education and public policy project, “Progressing the PushNation,” which will result in an effective [...]

Home Birth Summit Research and Data Task Force The U.S, Birth Place Mapping Study is the first large scale study to describe the status of integration of midwives (CNMs, CPMs, CMs) in each state. [...]

Midwifery Education Accreditation Council (MEAC) There are simply not enough accredited midwifery schools and programs to meet the current and projected trajectory of workforce demands.  Among [...]

Home Birth Summit Consumer Task Force The Giving Voice to Mothers study is underway. This study assesses how planned place of birth, race and ethnicity interact with the experience of maternity [...]

Midwives Alliance of North America, Division of Access and Equity MANA is thrilled to be launching the Access and Equity Division to address a two-fold problem of racial disparities and [...]

Changing Woman Initiative The Changing Woman Initiative is a Native American–centered women’s health collective focused on developing a culturally centered birth center. Our mission in doing [...]

Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) The MANA Statistics Project (MANA Stats) has resulted in transformative research that has the capacity to inform consumer decision-making, midwifery [...]