Shine the Light, Fill the Well: Black Maternal Health

Jeneé Osterheldt is a culture columnist who explores identity and social justice through the lens of culture and the arts. She centers Black lives and the lives of people of color. Her work ranges from writing about Beyoncé and Black womanhood to examining the importance of public art and representation. She also addresses systemic racism, sexism, and oppression. At the heart of her work: Black lives matter.

Osterheldt joined the Boston Globe in 2018. A native of Alexandria, Virginia, she is a graduate of Norfolk State University and a 2017 Nieman Fellow at Harvard, where she studied the intersection of art and justice. She previously served as a culture columnist for the Kansas City Star.

Latham Thomas is the founder of Mama Glow, a global maternal health and education platform serving birthing people across the childbearing continuum and home to a network of 3,000 doulas. In 2022, she was appointed Visiting Professor of the Practice of Gender and Sexuality Studies at Brown University’s Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, where the Mama Glow Professional Doula Training program became the first doula course embedded at an Ivy League institution.

Mama Glow supports families during fertility, pregnancy, birth, and postpartum, offering personalized doula services and working with insurance providers and hospital systems to improve the maternity care experience. Latham also founded the Mama Glow Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to advancing reproductive justice and birth equity through education, advocacy, the arts, research, and scholarship.

Latham serves on the Kate Spade New York Social Impact Council, increasing access to mental health support for women and girls, and on the Community Advisory Board for the Maternal OutcoMes (MOMs) Program at Northwell Health, New York’s largest healthcare provider. Through this partnership, Mama Glow helps train nursing staff and advocates for patient-centered care.

Named one of Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul 100, Latham has been a doula for clients including Alicia Keys, Anne Hathaway, Ashley Graham, DJ Khaled, Rebecca Minkoff, and Tamera Mowry. She is a graduate of Columbia University and the author of two best-selling books: Own Your Glow: A Soulful Guide to Luminous Living and Crowning the Queen Within and Mama Glow: A Hip Guide to Your Fabulous Abundant Pregnancy.

Stefanie D. Belnavis (she/her) is a differently abled Black and Indo-Jamaican-American interdisciplinary artist, perinatal movement psychotherapist, kinesthetic storyteller, photographer, educator, and spatial justice practitioner. Her work amplifies the voices, stories, and embodied experiences of Black and Brown communities, weaving together movement, visual art, photography, and activism to challenge systems of oppression and celebrate resilience, identity, and liberation.

Stefanie is the founder and executive director of A Bucket For The Well, LLC, a practice providing culturally affirming, trauma-responsive mental health support to BIPOC individuals and families. She is also the visionary behind The Diahann Project and Birthlooms, two initiatives that use photography and storytelling as tools for healing, narrative justice, and social change.

Nashira Baril (she/her), a biracial Black cisgender woman, is the daughter and great-granddaughter of midwives. She first experienced the sacred care of community midwives at the home births of her siblings in 1987 and 1989, and later at the births of her own two children in 2013 and 2017. These transformative experiences shaped her worldview and ultimately led her to embrace “the call” from elder midwife Dr. Jo-Anna Rorie, who first envisioned a birth center in Roxbury in 1980.

Nashira holds a master’s degree in maternal and child health from the Boston University School of Public Health and brings more than 20 years of experience designing and implementing public health strategies to advance racial equity. Founded in 2015, her initiative, Neighborhood Birth Center, will become Boston’s first-of-its-kind community birth center, offering community midwifery to address the maternal health crisis.

Nashira finds her greatest sense of freedom when walking barefoot in the grass or jumping into a cold lake. She lives with her family in the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston, the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Pawtucket, Massa-adchu-esset (Massachusett), Pokanoket, and Wampanoag peoples.

Stephanie Johnson (she/her) is a proud Boston native, midwife, and founder of Roots Midwifery, a home-birth practice grounded in culturally responsive, client-centered care. She holds a bachelor’s degree in community health from Curry College and brings more than eight years of experience as a doula and lactation consultant to her midwifery work. Stephanie launched Roots Midwifery after completing her training at Birthwise Midwifery School in Maine.

Her practice is rooted in a holistic approach that honors the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of birthing individuals—especially those from communities of color and other historically marginalized groups. A passionate advocate for maternal and infant health equity, Stephanie focuses on improving outcomes through personalized care, informed decision-making, and active listening. She believes that birth is a transformative experience that should be met with safety, dignity, and respect.

Stephanie’s work is guided by a commitment to restoring the legacy of Black and Brown midwives—“women caring for women”—and has made Roots Midwifery a trusted name in Boston’s birth justice movement. She creates empowering, nurturing spaces for clients from pregnancy through postpartum.

Stephanie lives in Boston with her daughters, Jazzmyne and Bri’Ann, and their dog, Chance. She enjoys 90s hip hop and R&B, HGTV, and beach days, balancing her passions with a deep commitment to transforming maternity care.