Kuumba Conversation with Senator Liz Miranda around the topic of Maternal Health Equity.

To learn more about YW Boston visit www.ywboston.org 

To learn more about Senator Liz Miranda visit: About Rep. Liz Miranda 

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Meet our Roundtable:

Emily Anesta (she/her), President, Bay State Birth Coalition

Emily Anesta is a passionate advocate for maternal health and birth justice, especially access to midwifery care. She co-founded and leads the Bay State Birth Coalition, organizing statewide policy advocacy to expand access to midwives and birth options in Massachusetts. Emily also proudly serves as board president of Birth Future Foundation (BFF), a national nonprofit funding midwives, doulas, and changemakers. Emily birthed her two children at home attended by midwives and was herself born at home with a midwife. These positive experiences with midwifery care inspired her to join the movement to improve maternal care.

Nashira Baril, Executive Director & Founder,  Neighborhood Birth Center

Nashira (she/her), is the daughter and great-granddaughter of midwives. She experienced firsthand the sacred care of midwives at the home births of her siblings in the 80s and her own two children in 2013 and 2017. These births transformed her worldview and put her on a path to uphold the vision of elder midwives who first dreamt of a birth center in Roxbury in the 1980s.  

Nashira earned a master’s degree in Maternal and Child Health from Boston University School of Public Health, and has over 20 years of experience designing and implementing public health strategies to advance racial equity. She is now the Executive Director of Neighborhood Birth Center, the first-of-its-kind community birth center, set to open in 2027 in Boston, providing community midwifery to strategic 

Nashira feels most free when walking barefoot in the grass or jumping in a cold lake. She lives with her family and rescue pup in the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston, the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Pawtucket, Massa-adchu-esset, Pokanoket, and the Wampanoag people. 

Zev Colsen (they | them)

Zev Colsen (they | them) is a Certified Professional Midwife and the Legislative Policy Analyst at the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives. They’re a full spectrum midwife with a focus on fertility and conception for queer and trans folks, bringing experience in home and birth center settings. Their background in community organizing has been instrumental in both health policy work and clinical practice.  

@lumen_midwifery on ig 

@nacpmmidwives 

Ketura’h Edwards

 

Ketura'h (Key-Tor-ah) Edwards-Robinson, MSN, SANE-MA, WHNP-BC, AGNP-C A Roxbury native, Ketura'h has worked at the Dimock Center for over ten years and currently serves as a Nurse Practitioner and Maternal Child Health Program Manager in the OB/GYN Department. She also provides immediate postpartum care at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Ketura'h is a trained community birth doula and childbirth educator. She serves as President of the Board of Directors for Accompany Doula Care Inc. She earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Smith College, a Master of Science in Nursing from Boston College and holds a post-master's certificate from UMass Boston. She is currently completing her Doctor of Nursing Practice at Boston College. She lives in Randolph with her daughter and is a proud member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. 

Sundé W. Daniels

Sundé W. Daniels is Managing Director of the Center for Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice (Tufts University School of Medicine), an academic research center focused on addressing persistent racial disparities in maternal outcomes — particularly the disproportionate risks faced by Black and Brown birthing people in Massachusetts and nationally.

In her role, Sundé serves as a senior strategic and operational leader working at the intersection of research, care delivery, community leadership, and policy. Her work is deeply outward-facing and relationship-driven, focused on building and nurturing partnerships across clinicians, midwives, researchers, community organizations, innovators, and policymakers to identify structural gaps in maternal healthcare delivery and align collaborative, evidence-informed solutions.

Sundé often describes her role as ecosystem building — strengthening the connective tissue between research, care delivery, community wisdom, and policy infrastructure so that maternal health equity efforts are reinforced rather than fragmented. She also leads the growth of the Center’s innovation and education initiatives, cultivating a network of leaders advancing women’s health research and care models with equity as the driving motivation.

Her work is grounded in both institutional leadership and personal proximity to maternal health challenges, reinforcing her commitment to ensuring that health equity efforts translate into measurable, sustainable impact for women and families.

Dr. Crista Johnson-Agbakwu

Dr. Crista Johnson-Agbakwu is a Professor in the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UMass Memorial Health and Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at UMass Chan Medical School, where she is also the inaugural Executive Director of the Collaborative in Health Equity. She brings 30 years of experience advancing reproductive and sexual health equity for women of color. She has garnered national and international visibility and recognition for her leadership and scholarship embodying a trifecta of culturally grounded clinical and surgical care, mixed methods Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) engagement, and teaching to train the next generation of clinician, public health, and social science scholars in advancing maternal health equity. She remains anchored in advancing health equity for vulnerable, racially marginalized communities to drive culturally responsive, linguistically inclusive, patient-centered, respectful care, and to optimize health outcomes.

Liza M. Swedarsky MD

Dr. Liza Swedarsky is a gynecologist with over 28 years of clinical experience, specializing in outpatient care, laparoscopy and robotic surgery, and chronic pelvic pain. She serves in the Division of Urban Health at Mass General Brigham and is an Instructor at Harvard Medical School. Since 2006, she has intentionally advanced equity in gynecologic care for marginalized, Black, and Hispanic women through her work in six of Boston’s community health centers.

She is the founder of Health Vows and the Embracing Black initiative, creating educational healing experiences that promote self-advocacy. She has been recognized as a Boston Top Doctor for the past nine years. Dr. Swedarsky is an Ambassador for the American Cancer Society’s Voices of Black Women and the Physical and Mental Health Co-Chair of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.’s Boston Alumnae Chapter. Her passion integrates spirituality, mindfulness, and evidence-based medicine to positively impact individual behaviors.

Tiffany Vassell

Tiffany Vassell, MS, RN is a maternal health advocate, equity leader, and nurse educator serving as Director of the Healthy Baby Healthy Child program at the Boston Public Health Commission. A former labor and delivery and substance use recovery nurse, she advances equitable, community-centered care and midwifery access. She co-authored the award-winning Preparation for a Hospital Birth and is a 2025–2026 IHI Fellow. Tiffany holds leadership roles across statewide and national equity initiatives and has received numerous honors for her impact. She is most proud to be the mother of two, Amelia and Kash.

Resources & Tools for Maternal Health Equity

Health Imperatives

  • Community-based nonprofit serving Southeastern Massachusetts. Provides reproductive and
    maternal health care, abortion care, STI/HIV services, family planning, and health equity–focused
    programming for underserved communities including women of color.

Resilient Sisterhood Project (Cambridge)

  • Grassroots organization educating and empowering Black women and women of African descent around reproductive and maternal health.

Melanin Mass Moms

  • Supports mothers of color through postpartum support, culturally responsive resources, community building, and advocacy.

Moms Hierarchy of Needs

  • We provide Moms with products, research and community, to reclaim time from the never-done list for their wellbeing.

Birth Sisters Program – Boston Medical Center

  • Multicultural doula and perinatal support program serving diverse and underserved communities.

Boston Healthy Start Initiative

  • Program focused on reducing racial inequities in infant mortality and poor birth outcomes through care coordination and family support.

Perinatal Mental Health Alliance for People of Color (PMHA-POC)

  • Provides culturally specific perinatal mental health education, support, and advocacy for communities of color.

Accompany Doula Care

  • Community-based doula organization working to integrate culturally responsive doula services into clinical systems to address maternal health inequities.

Massachusetts Department of Public Health – Doula Initiative

  • State initiative expanding access to doulas and improving maternal health outcomes across Massachusetts.

Codman Square Health Center – Maternal & Child Health

  • Community health center in Dorchester providing comprehensive maternal and child health services for diverse and multilingual populations.

EDC – Community Birth and Doula Integration Initiative

  • In the Community Birth and Doula Integration Initiative, EDC and the Massachusetts Department of Health (DPH) are collaboratively advancing the state’s goal to improve maternal health outcomes.

Lumen Midwifery

  • Client centered reproductive care for everyBODY.

Advocacy/Policy/Research

Center for Black Maternal Health & Reproductive Justice (Tufts University)

  • Research, advocacy, and community engagement center focused on eliminating Black maternal health disparities and advancing reproductive justice.

Community Coalition for Change

  • We are focused on creating and implementing programs using awareness of cultural differences making our community more welcoming and inclusive to all.

Mass League Institute for Health Equity

Moms Rising

  • We take on the most critical issues facing women, mothers, and families by educating the public and mobilizing massive grassroots actions.

Articles/News

Policy to be Aware Of:

Federal:

  • The PREEMIE Reauthorization Act, which strengthens federal support for research, education, and interventions related to preterm birth (birth before 37 weeks of pregnancy).
  • is the Preventing Maternal Deaths Reauthorization Act extends federal investment in state Maternal Mortality Review Committees through 2030. These committees bring together multidisciplinary experts to review maternal deaths, identify contributing factors, and translate findings into policy and system-level improvements.

Local:

  • S.171 — An Act to support maternal health filed by Sen Rausch Would provide financial assistance to eligible pregnant people to support maternal health needs (economic support during pregnancy).
  • S.789 — An Act relative to insurance coverage for doula services filed by Senator Miranda would require broader insurance coverage (beyond MassHealth) for doula services through private insurance — strengthening financial access to community-based support.
  • H.1117 / S.784 — An Act promoting and enhancing the sustainability of birth centers and the midwifery workforce filed by Reps. Manny Cruz & Lindsay Sabadosa and Senator Joan B. Lovely would focuses on birth center sustainability, midwifery workforce development, and equitable reimbursement — building on the infrastructure created by the 2024 maternal health law.
  • Take Action! — Bay State Birth Coalition 

Help us create a more equitable city

YW Boston addresses individual, interpersonal, and structural barriers in order to create more equitable spaces for women, people of color, and especially women of color.