BY HAILEY COGNETTI
Midwife-led care improves maternal health outcomes. Yet midwives at Jacobi Medical Center and North Central Bronx Hospital claim they are undervalued by their employers. Midwives at both Bronx hospitals have been working without a contract since June 30, 2023. At a December 3 press conference outside Jacobi, midwives demanded that their facilities address understaffing issues and increase pay for midwives.
“For more than a year now, our hardworking midwives have been in negotiation for an agreement to reconcile salary disparities and deal with serious understaffing issues,” New York State Assembly Member John Zaccero Jr. said at the press conference.
The New York State Nurses Association NYSNA, which represents midwives at both hospitals, reported that midwives at Jacobi and North Central Bronx handle nearly all vaginal births and assist during cesarean sections at the facilities.
“While I do what I can to treat our patients with respect, our employer does not,” Valerie Nelson, licensed midwife who’s worked for 12 years at Jacobi, told the rally. “Our employer believes that they can get by with the bare minimum, squeezing as much out of us as possible. Perhaps because we work for the marginalized population, no one will notice.”
According to The Chief, midwives at the two hospitals earn 14% less than other midwives in the region. Midwives who spoke at the event maintained that the lack of a fair contract has contributed to increasing burnout and turnover among midwives, further exacerbating the staffing shortages.
Speakers at the rally highlighted the diversity of the midwifery staff at the two hospitals, which includes many women of color. “More than half of us are bilingual, and while less than 7% of midwives nationally are Black, at Jacobi 35% of our midwives are Black or Brown,” said Kinikia Reid, a midwife at Jacobi for the last five years.
For Reid, being a midwife is deeply personal, she felt called to the profession to help those who look like her.
“I see my own sister and my childhood best friends in the faces of the women I care for,” Reid said. “I know that part of coming into this work as a melanated woman is meant to be about healing some of the generational trauma experienced by our communities in medical spaces and hoping to create a new narrative of empowerment, voice, and agency for the next generation of birthed people in the Bronx.”
Research has consistently demonstrated that midwife-led care reduces maternal mortality, which in New York City disproportionately affects Black birthing people. Black people are six times more likely to die of childbirth-related causes than White birthing people.
According to the CommonWealth Fund, a private foundation promoting equitable healthcare, the use of midwives is associated with “fewer cesarean sections, lower preterm birth rates, lower episiotomy rates, higher breastfeeding rates, and a greater sense of respect and autonomy for the patient.”
“The numbers we see in the Bronx are horrific. The numbers of maternal mortality, infant mortality is a hundred percent preventable,” New York State Senator Natalia Fernandez said at the press conference. “Every successful birth in this hospital is thanks to a midwife.”