Hannah Landis is involved in a lot of things locally, such as her partial ownership of Mad Goat Coffee and Royal Donut. But it is her work as a midwife that led her to start a new non-profit 501c3 organization called the Danville Birth Project. As Landis recently explained to Laura Williams on 1490 WDAN’s Community Connection program, the idea is to form a public-private partnership, and bring together midwives; DULAs who provide services such as helping a pregnant woman work towards natural childbirth, and anyone who wants to see an improvement in pregnancies and birth outcomes.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: By raising awareness about the midwifery model of care, raising awareness regarding the disparities that exist in maternity care, and promoting access to compassionate and evidence based care.
Landis says one way to attack the existing disparities is to train minorities who are interested in becoming midwives.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: Black mothers who graduated from college have a 60% greater risk for a maternal death than white or Hispanic women who didn’t graduate from high school. So, we see that it really isn’t even about, always, just the socio-economic factors; but there is real discrimination in the system. And one of the things that we need to do in order to address that is provide culturally congruent care.
Landis says fundraising efforts are scheduled to begin this winter. For more information, you can go to danvillebirthproject.org, or e-mail to danvillebirthproject@gmail.com.
To hear Laura Williams’ entire interview with Hannah Landis, please go to https://vermilioncountyfirst.com/the-community-connection/
