Black Maternal Health Festival:
Centering Black Maternal Joy,
Vitality, and Health
May 2nd-8th, 2026
Remembering the ways that have contributed to our resilience and perseverance.
Remembering the ways that have contributed to our resilience and perseverance.
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While this week is centering the experiences, voices, brilliance, history, and future of Black people and families, all are welcomed. We are all impacted by the Medical Industrial Complex. While it is true that Black people are the most harmed and un-alived, we are all impacted by this heinous system. Centering the voices of the most marginalized is imperative in our collective healing and liberation. This festival is for all of us who care about Black people. This event is a safe space for Black people and will center us, celebrate us, and hold us! We will have various offerings through out the week that are for BIPOC only as to ensure we are cultivating a safe space.
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Believe in the traditional midwifery model of care as the anecdote to us all thriving!
Wish to not only optimize our outcomes, but eradicate the Black maternal health crisis as a whole!
Value the wisdom of traditional midwives.
Wish to center our joy, vitality, and pleasure as a tool of liberation!
Are ready to have the time of their lives while being inspired like never before!
Have true love and appreciation for Black women, birthing people, and their babies!
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This is truly a community effort. This festival would not exist without the many hands that have contributed. While, the vision came through Sumi, it was clear that it would take a collective effort to nurture it into fruition. Sumayyah Franklin is a traditional midwife, mother, and mentor of many. She knew from a young age that she was called to be midwife and has remained steadfast to her purpose. She is committed to the preservation and reclamation of traditional midwifery. Today she is caring for her children, supporting her community as a midwife, and facilitating her educational and community offerings both in person and online.
We can all thank a Black traditional midwife for being here today…
Black midwifery history doesn't begin with slavery. It is well documented that we have been traveling to the West well before the start of the Atlantic Slave trade. With us, we were always midwives, medicine people, seeers, and herbalists. In fact, in many cases one person may have possessed all of these abilities.
Through the Atlantic slave trade very skilled people were gathered and forced into enslavement. I often wonder how we were able to adapt to these new lands, but maybe they weren't so new after all. An integral part of all people surviving was ensuring that the women and their babies survived child birth and postpartum. Therefore, midwives were vital. These women would care not only for the enslaved Africans but also the white people, too.
The anecdote has always been and always will be Black traditional midwifery that is rooted in community and sovereignty.
In order for us to eradicate the threats to Black Maternal Health, we need a resurgence of the midwifery model of care that is rooted in community.
Our Intentions With The Festival
I am tired of seeing the centering of our mortality and morbidity. That angle is old to be honest, and not productive. On top of that, the majority of the voices being centered are academics and practitioners who work within the MIC. While I do agree their work and perspective is valuable, we cannot elevate without bringing forth the community midwives. If it's true that the anecdote is a resurgence and return to the traditional midwifery model of care, why aren't we focusing our energy, resources, investments, and strategies here?
The proof is in the numbers: Black women thrive in the care of Black community based midwives! So, we aren't only making our own table, we are inviting you to come take a seat and listen to us goooooood!
Still, there was a missing piece to the puzzle. Having a festival didn't feel motivating enough. I could not see how this brought about tangible change and solution. We cannot afford to live in the hypothetical. This is when a profound full circle moment presented itself: The Black Midwives Fellowship. The festival is our fundraiser to ensure that these midwives are able to receive the training, skills, and inspiration to liberate their communities as the traditional midwives have done in Uganda. In 20,000 birth they have never lost a mother!!! There is something profound for us to learn and sit at their feet to witness. So, this festival isn’t just a gesture and a hope that we will thrive. It is rooted in tangible change and action! If I took away anything from my many visits to the birth center in Uganda, it's that centering joy is one of our most potent tools of liberation! So let's have some fun!!!
The BMHF is a fundraiser for the Black Midwifery Fellowship
If you can not join the festival please contribute to the cause
Meet Our Host & Master of Ceremony Yaya DaCosta
Yaya DaCosta’s dynamic talent as an actress has been showcased in powerful performances across film, television and stage productions, including “The Lincoln Lawyer”, “Our Kind of People”, “Chicago Med”, “Whitney” and, most recently, “Not My Family: The Monique Smith Story”. The Brown University graduate is also a producer, birth worker, and wayshower, who is deeply dedicated to contributing to society’s elevation through, art, beauty and magic. Her current Earth mission is to integrate her different callings through the creation and embodiment of empowering narratives that birth a kinder future for women in the entertainment industry and on the planet.
Registration
Our Collaborators
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The Miles Foundation is not just a 501c3 philanthropic foundation; we are a united collective who deeply recognize that birth and grief encompass a full spectrum. Therefore, it is crucial to center and validate the experiences of individuals navigating grief and loss across this continuum.
The Miles Foundation provides direct funding and access to maternal health organizations and businesses that center whole person, autonomous maternal care with a focus on grief and healing. We value traditional midwifery, out-of-hospital care, and healing. We give grants to organizations and practitioners for individuals who have directly experienced miscarriage, stillbirth, infertility, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), or Sudden Unexpected Death in Childhood (SUDC), and or trauma. Learn more about our black birth equity initiative.
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Mother Health International is committed to improving birth outcomes in areas where the burden of mortality
is highest. MHI uses the midwifery model of care to reduce barriers and build collaborative, community-focused maternal health care solutions. Reproductive Healthcare is a human right. Mothers have the right to not only survive childbirth, but thrive.MHI organizes care according to the Quality Maternal Newborn Care Framework described in the landmark Lancet Series, which states that at scale, Midwifery Care would avert 80% of unnecessary mortality in low and middle-income countries. ‘Ot Nywal Me Kuc’ (House of Birth and Peace) is MHI’s model birth center. In thirteen years of service, the birth center has scaled to provide
full-spectrum reproductive healthcare to 90% of the women in the region and turned perinatal mortality rates upside down. While the neonatal mortality rate is 54/1000 births in Northern Uganda, rates have consistently been 11/1000 at the birth center in Atiak. In close to 20,000 deliveries MHI has never lost a mother. -
Breast Friends Lactation Support services is a nonprofit organization supporting and empowering families in the San Francisco Bay Area through one-on-one consultation, groups, and classes since 2013. The idea of Breast Friends came while working with the Black families in East and West Oakland neighborhoods. Breastfeeding was not part of the parenting culture. The mothers of this community did not breastfeed their babies past the first month. The West Oakland community has some of the poorest health outcomes in Alameda County. The Black breastfeeding initiation and duration rates are below the national average. Breastfeeding is a natural safety net to protect against many health disparities that plague the Black community.
The Breast Friends Mommy group was created in the spirit of change and creating a heritage of health. Breast Friends, as it is commonly called, is a Black identified focused support group for pregnant and breastfeeding mamas. Since its creation, Brandi and the Breast Friends team have supported over 500 mamas and babies in the East and West Oakland Area. Many have surpassed their original breastfeeding goals and continue to refer family and friends to this unique space. They believe in a peer-to-peer support model and that other mamas modeling normal breastfeeding behavior will positively impact the lactation journey, making their personal infant feeding goals attainable.
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An after hours Infant feeding, pregnancy and postpartum virtual support group created to uplift, encourage and share experiences on breastfeeding, lactation, pregnancy, postpartum and parenting.