You are invited to a Stop on the Book Tour!
Thursday October 22nd
Featured Conversation w/ Elder & Grand Midwife Shafia Monroe
Moderated by Ste’Keira Shepperson
Friday October 23rd
Lunch & Learn w/ Midwife Shafia Monroe: African-American Belly Wrapping Training
Saturday October 24th
Carolina Midwives Luncheon
Facilitated by Rebecca Severin
What to Expect
Day One
Meet the
Author &
Book Signing
Day Two
Intimate Hands on
Training
& Legacy Building
Day Three
Connect w/ NC
Birth & Repro Justice
Comrades
Grand Midwife Shafia Monroe
Shafia Monroe, MPH, is a renowned midwife, author, and cultural historian, and the founder of SMC Full Circle Doula Birth Companion Training. A leading expert on African American birth and postpartum traditions, she has spent over four decades caring for mothers and studying the practices of twentieth-century Black midwives. Since 1978, she has studied the practices of twentieth-century African American midwives, focusing on herbal remedies and foods that promote postpartum health and wellness. Monroe has traveled internationally to interview and shadow Black midwives, gaining firsthand knowledge of their postpartum cultures and traditions. With forty years of experience as a midwife, she has cared for thousands of postpartum women, incorporating African American foods and traditions to help them fully recuperate after childbirth.
Championing doula care for all, Monroe spearheaded the Oregon Coalition to Improve Birth Outcomes, creating the legislative concept Oregon HB 3311 to investigate the use of doulas to improve birth outcomes in vulnerable populations. Her work marked Oregon as the first state in the nation to approve Medicaid reimbursement for doulas and ICTC as the first Oregon Health Authority approved doula-credentialing organization. Full Circle Doula Birth Companion Training became Oregon Health Authority Approved in 2018.
Monroe is the fifth child of seven children. Her father was a foot-washing Baptist from rural Alabama, and her mother was a Bostonian Catholic. She is blessed to have experienced life in the inner city of Boston and in rural Alabama. Her parents were activists – she grew up watching her mother advocate for quality public education, voter registration, and fair housing. Monroe helped her father create community gardens in vacant lots in Boston and care for the land in Alabama.
Her background in rural Alabama, where her grandmother emphasized that food is medicine and her aunts taught her to prepare nourishing meals, enhanced her authority and credibility as an author for postpartum foods. As a mother of seven, Monroe understands the needs of postpartum mothers firsthand. Monroe’s parents taught her the importance of standing for justice, so when Monroe learned the Black infant mortality rate was two and a half times higher than the white infant mortality rate, she was appalled. At age 17, Monroe began working to improve perinatal outcomes by training as a homebirth midwife and educating members of the Black community on having home births to improve their birth outcomes. She also opened a midwifery school to increase the number of community midwives. Monroe attributes her success to her spiritual practices, her parents, her commitment to reproductive justice, and her love of midwifery and people.
Monroe spends her free time with her husband, seven children, and ten grandchildren. She enjoys cooking for family and friends, walking, dancing, gardening, writing, fishing, and horseback riding. Monroe lives in Portland, Oregon.
Monroe holds a BA in sociology, a Master of Public Health, and an Independent Primary Midwife certification from the Massachusetts Midwives Alliance. She is a member of multiple coalitions to improve maternity care, through continuing education and training. Her work has made a significant impact in improving infant and maternal health through leadership development. Her model for improving maternity care is being replicated both here and abroad and is featured in multiple publications. Monroe has been recognized with numerous awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Midwives Alliance of North America and the Dr. Hildrus A. Poindexter of the Black Caucus of Health Workers of the American Public Health Association.
She became president of Shafia Monroe Consulting/Birthing CHANGE in 2013, to aid healthcare professionals and doulas in achieving cultural competency, increasing clients, and improving perinatal outcomes. In the same year, she opened Doula Ready LLC to prevent premature births by reducing perinatal stress for professional women.
Monroe’s groundbreaking book, Mothering the Mother: African American Postpartum Traditions, Recipes, and Healing, revives ancestral wisdom to support modern families. This work is a heartfelt gift for Black mothers, providing guidance for healing after childbirth and encouraging them to take time to bond with and enjoy their new baby. Monroe aims to help reduce the disproportionately high maternal mortality rate among African Americans by reviving traditional healing recipes and practices that enhance the health of new mothers and mobilize families and communities to collectively support the mother, baby, father, and family.
Monroe’s work has been featured in The Portland Observer, Madame Noire, Oregon Historical Quarterly, Double Dutch, Mater Mea, and the American Journal of Public Health.
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