About Jennifer

          Why Blackbird Perinatal Care Community?

“When disability ended my career as a nurse-midwife, I knew I would find another way to serve birthing families. As my time away from the system grew, I began to see the glaring ways in which the current offerings do not meet the needs of birthing people and babies. In clinical practice, I would often refer people for services like infant feeding and lactation support, exercise guidance to help with the pelvic floor and abdominal muscle separation issues common after pregnancy and birth, or help processing their birth experience when thoughts and memories were overwhelming. What I learned from outside the system is that families raising new babies often lack the time, energy, or resources to follow up on those referrals and get those needs met.  And the professionals giving that advice were often out of touch with the barriers families face in accessing care. When COVID hit, research shows that it ushered in a secondary epidemic of isolation and silence for birthing and postpartum people, which left them with even greater barriers to accessing care at a time when they needed it most.  

That’s where Blackbird comes in…even though I went to school for ten years to support birthing and parenting families…even though I learned a lot there…even though I spent ten years supporting families BEFORE that…it wasn’t enough.  Learning never stops if we want to support families. So, I leveled up…

• I joined Manhattan Birth for the amazing Integrative Lactation+Infant Feeding Specialist certification training, a program hallmarked by compassion, wisdom and radical inclusivity.

• I worked with birth trauma specialists, and certified as a Birth Story Listener with Birth Story Medicine by Pam England.  The Birth Story Listener supports parents experiencing unresolved memories about birth brought about by unwished for events, relationships with those tasked to care for you, or systemic policy failures. These sessions are also invaluable for birth workers who have experienced vicarious trauma or moral injury in their work.

• Drawing on my early life experience as a ballet dancer and instructor, as well as my Masters level understanding of anatomy and kinesiology, I certified as a Postpartum Corrective Exercise Specialist with Core Exercise Solutions by Dr. Sarah Duvall.  Physical trauma and other types of trauma often go hand in hand, and I offer an integrated approach to healing.
  

• I trained with Krysta Dancy and Dancy Perinatal in debriefing, preventing birth trauma and trauma-informed care for both providers and birthing people.

• Now in my third decade of supporting birthing families and birthworkers, I am connected to an amazing network of colleagues in a variety of specialties, from pelvic floor physical therapy, to counselors specializing in perinatal issues, to a trauma-informed provider for future reproductive healthcare.”