Jamaa Birth Village

Jamaa Birth Village The Historic Jamaa Birth Village Cultural Heritage Center envisions a world where birth is sacred, communal and grounded in ancestral wisdom.

We preserve & elevate African diasporic midwifery through care, cultural preservation, education and advocacy. For more information please call 314-643-7703 or visit JamaaBirthVillage.org

Supporting the work does not have to look huge to make a real impact.✨$25 can help provide postpartum and baby essential...
06/04/2026

Supporting the work does not have to look huge to make a real impact.

✨$25 can help provide postpartum and baby essentials

✨$50 can help support holistic care resources for a family

✨$100 can help invest in training and supporting future birth workers

✨$250 can help expand access to culturally rooted midwifery and doula care

Every dollar helps us continue the work through:
• Midwifery care
• Doula support
• Doula training
• The Midwifery School
• The African Indigenous Midwifery Museum & Library Research Institute

This work is community supported. 💜

Give and learn more:
jamaabirthvillage.org

Food has always been part of the healing.Across African and Indigenous traditions, meals were created to nourish the bod...
06/03/2026

Food has always been part of the healing.

Across African and Indigenous traditions, meals were created to nourish the body, support fertility, restore energy, and care for mothers before and after birth.

This Fonio & Date Sweet Bowl is inspired by those traditions and the belief that wellness can begin with simple, intentional ingredients.

We loved sharing this one with you and have more traditional fertility and postpartum recipes coming soon from Jamaa. 🤎

06/02/2026

Today we’re celebrating Qiana’s ✨50th✨ birthday!!

We are so overjoyed to honor, celebrate and uplift Qiana Lewis-Jamaa’s Executive Leader! Qiana MoonBow is a revered communal mother and grandmother, a holder of wisdom, sacred medicine and deep love and care for Black people.🫶🏾

To know Qiana is to know truth. As an avid supporter of Jamaa since our founding, a global Reproductive Justice & Black Maternal Health leader, a q***r advocate, and multifaceted doula, and transformative strategist-Qiana has woven together a sacred network of love. She carries divine integrity in her spark, a soft pillow for landing in her heart, and wisdom filled hands full of support for Black women, across lands with every person she touches.💜

To know her is to know what real community is. To be in her presence is to actually exist in a safe space and to not just talk about yearning it. Being in nature with Qiana is to watch yourself liberate from the confines of oppression in real time. To be held by Qiana with words, affirmations and movement, is to know that love from a Black woman-IS the antidote.

To dance and celebrate with Qiana is to feel joy in every inch of your being. To advocate and rally alongside her for human rights is a mirroring of the divine feminine-herself!

Qiana is currently moving mountains as she leads Jamaa into its thriving future. We are overwhelmingly grateful, honored and in gratitude to be lead, guided by and cared for by Qiana at Jamaa and beyond.🌿

If you’ve been blessed by Qiana or if you’re just coming to know of her magnificence, join us in honoring her today, on her solar return!!

Happy blessed birthday Qiana, with love from your Jamaa fam!!

We celebrate you always✨💜✨

Maude W. Callen was a nurse midwife, teacher, healer, and community leader who cared for thousands of families across ru...
06/02/2026

Maude W. Callen was a nurse midwife, teacher, healer, and community leader who cared for thousands of families across rural South Carolina when access to medical care was limited and segregation left Black communities underserved.

She traveled dirt roads, day and night, and during all types of weather, many times by foot.

She delivered babies and provided care for entire families, babies to elders.

She trained a generation of midwives, and she made sure mothers and children received care with dignity.

Women like Maude W. Callen are the reason this work matters. Her hands, heart and spirit carried lineages of women and family who felt truly cared for.

We honor her legacy and the sacred lineage of Black midwifery that continues today. 💜

Her story and display can be experienced at the African Indigenous Midwifery Museum.

Learn more and plan your visit:
https://blackmidwiferymuseum.org

Happy June!🫶🏾To guide us into the new calendar month, we’re sharing sacred midwifery wisdom from Jamaa’s Founder.Majorit...
06/01/2026

Happy June!🫶🏾

To guide us into the new calendar month, we’re sharing sacred midwifery wisdom from Jamaa’s Founder.

Majority of expecting women are not asking for perfection, they’re asking to feel heard, seen, honored and respected.✨

They’re asking to have real conversations, where they lead, and are not talked at or down to.

They’re asking to be involved in decisions related to their own body, and not for technology to take precedence over what they know to be true about their wellbeing.🌿

Women simply want to know and feel like their body and instincts matter too when giving birth within the modern maternity system.

That’s why wisdom like this from Jamaa’s Founder continues to resonate with so many birthing families seeking more personalized and holistic care, because person to person care is the origin-not technology over women’s rights, or machines over humanity. 💜

Learn more about Jamaa Birth Village and our approach to care:
www.jamaabirthvillage.org

Today we’re celebrating and honoring Artist, Creative, Sound Healer & OG Doula-simiya sudduth-who celebrated her 39th bi...
05/29/2026

Today we’re celebrating and honoring Artist, Creative, Sound Healer & OG Doula-simiya sudduth-who celebrated her 39th birthday yesterday while completing another Black midwife mural piece for us just last week!🙌🏾✨

simiya is a true gem to the STL community and beyond. As a sound healer, artist and past Jamaa family doula, we have witnessed simiya invoke gentle care, awareness, education and next level support to mothers, families and youth across the region.

We have also been immensely blessed by her creative artistry. Since last Summer, simiya has spent countless hours working alongside Jamaa’s founder to bring to life the voices, wisdom and sometimes buried stories of Black ancestral midwives through mural painting at Jamaa for the African Indigenous Midwifery Museum & Library. Now, the names, stories and power of these amazing women will live on, not just in books on a shelf or old newspaper articles, but in live, bold, living monuments.🌿

simiya has now created a 2-phased outdoor Black Midwife Mural & Monument at our historic location, an African Indigenous & Primordial birth mural in our storytelling room, and an ode art piece to Dahomey warrior & midwife Abdaraya Toya Montou in our “Midwives of Africa” exhibition at the African Indigenous Midwifery Museum.

We’d like you to join us in celebrating simiya, and all the gifts she embodies and brings into the world. We couldn’t imagine working with a more kinder, compassionate and caring person such as her, to carry out this sacred work at AIMM & Jamaa!✨

simiya, we’re wishing you a very happy special birthday, and many more days of wellness, abundance and joy, from all of us at Jamaa!! Happy blessed birthday to you!!💜🫶🏾

As this month comes to a close, one thing we hope people carry with them is this:✨Deep undisturbed rest matters.✨Having ...
05/29/2026

As this month comes to a close, one thing we hope people carry with them is this:

✨Deep undisturbed rest matters.

✨Having trusted community with genuine folks, where the relationships aren’t based on transactions matters.

✨Deep cultural care, where you can be your whole self matters.

So much of this work is about showing up for others, but this month reminded us that we also deserve moments to pause, reflect, heal, and reconnect with ourselves too.

As you move into a new month, give yourself one small act of care:
• Explore different forms of hydration: Coconut water, cucumber water, mint water, etc.
• Find a cozy special place in nature to regularly come back to
• Plan low or no-tech hours, and ease into no screens at least an hour prior to bed for deeper rest
• Identify trusted people who you may feel safe leaning on deeper in asking for help prior to struggling
• Plan more naps, rest or down time, without guilt

Trust yourself in creating the small habits that uplift, restore & pour into you.🤎

Pouring into others prior to pouring into ourselves, is oftentimes the foundation for burnout.Today we’re calling in bir...
05/28/2026

Pouring into others prior to pouring into ourselves, is oftentimes the foundation for burnout.

Today we’re calling in birth workers, midwives, doulas, mental health counselors, and those who serve others.

Your care matters too, and oftentimes, in serving and caring for others, our well being is inadvertently impacted. Here’s a gentle reminder that your healing is also a continuous part of the work.

Take a moment to check in with yourself today, and consider your mental, spiritual and physical well-being. If this resonates, share it with another birthworker who needs the reminder.🌿

One thing about this work is nobody does it alone.Behind every movement, every birthworker, every space like Jamaa Birth...
05/27/2026

One thing about this work is nobody does it alone.

Behind every movement, every birthworker, every space like Jamaa Birth Village, there are people who showed up early, powerfully, and consistently.

This year, we were blessed to honor 4-incredible women with Black Maternal Health Awards:

✨Okunsola M. Amadou Trailblazer Award- Erica Strong

✨Mary Stepp Burnette HaydenCommunity Healer Award-Queen Afua

✨Abdaraya Victoria Montou Maternal Health Warrior Award- Mama Tomasina & Corrinna Edwards

This year’s award recipients remind us that legacy is not just built through titles or visibility, often, it is built through sacrifice, community care, mentorship, advocacy, healing, and simply saying yes when someone needs support.

We are deeply honored to celebrate these powerful women and the impact they continue to have on families, birth work, and Black Maternal Health across generations. 💜

The African Indigenous Midwifery Library & Research Institute was created as a sacred space for research, reflection, an...
05/26/2026

The African Indigenous Midwifery Library & Research Institute was created as a sacred space for research, reflection, and community knowledge.

A place where you can sit with the work. Study deeply and be connected to the true stories of Indigenous, cultural and communal births-and its evolution.

The AIM LRI is open Wednesday–Saturday, 10am–4pm, with free 2-hour study sessions available by appointment on our website.

Book your visit:
https://jamaabirthvillage.org/black-midwifery-library-research-institute/

Address

St. Louis, MO

Telephone

+13146437703

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Jamaa Birth Village posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Practice

Send a message to Jamaa Birth Village:

Shortcuts

Share

Category