MIDWIVES IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Trailblazing Grad Wins National Fellowship for Native Health
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by Barbra Elenbaas, ACNM Communications Assistant
hen she passed her board exams in June, Brittany Simplicio, CNM, became only the eleventh Native nursemidwife in the United States. A Navajo, she has spent her life in a veritable hotbed of midwifery activity: New Mexico. Nearly onequarter of births in the state are attended by CNMs, due in part to the prevalence of midwifery care in the Brittany Simplicio, CNM Indian Health Service. Simplicio’s own clinical rotations while attending the University of New Mexico’s nurse-midwifery program have largely been on the Navajo Nation, both at the Northern New Mexico Medical Center in Shiprock, NM, and the Tsehootsooi Medical Center in Fort Defiance, Arizona. Simplicio is and has been devoted to serving Native communities through her profession and her passion. She has been instrumental in the ongoing efforts of her mentor Nicolle Gonzales, CNM, to revive traditional Native childbirth practices and establish a birth center in northern New Mexico that will serve Navajo, Pueblo, and Apache families.
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“A birth center concentrated around Native American traditions and way of life will provide much more than another option for women to receive care and birth their babies,” Simplicio says of the birth center planned in Espanola, NM, called Breath of My Heart Birth Place. “It will be an opportunity for women and families to better learn and reconnect with their traditions while passing knowledge to future generations.” In April, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) announced that Simplicio had won its second annual Native Graduate Health Fellowship, part of the Congress’ commitment to equipping the next generation of Native leaders. The Graduate Health Fellowship aims to build a pipeline of Native health professionals who can support tribal sovereignty and who are prepared to lead in promoting health policies and practices that address the unique needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives. The award included both a financial award of $5000 and, more germane for Simplicio, professional development in tribal health policy. Simplicio has a self-professed great interest in health policy and anticipates the fellowship to be a “wonderful opportunity to learn about tribal policies in greater detail” before she returns to Native communities to use her expanded knowledge to enhance the wellness of Native women and families— starting with efforts like the birth center in the Espanola Valley. “The movement of birth from our hogans (homes) to hospitals when the Indian Health Service was implemented in 1955 contributed to the disappearance of traditional childbirth practices and Navajo midwives,” Simplicio explains. “A birth center can be a start to bringing back Native childbirth practices by increasing traditional cultural wisdom and healing within the Western medical model.” She firmly believes, however, that such a compromise can be reached within IHS as well: “I think the NCAI fellowship will give me the tools I need to get started.” Simplicio will begin her Fellowship by spending a week this summer attending workshops on tribal sovereignty and public policy while meeting with tribal leaders and policy makers at the Embassy of Tribal Nations in Washington, DC, but her ultimate goal is a simple one: she says her heart is set on “returning home to the Navajo Nation and practicing in [her] community of Shiprock, New Mexico.”?
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The handouts in this educational series address more than 50 women’s health topics, including 10 available in Spanish.