Mariposa Midwifery LLC

07/13/2026

Summer in Arizona is not for the faint of heart. But there is some adventure to it. This Summer has seen four scorpions and one black widow, fortunately not too many giant cockroaches. And now our first haboob!

06/28/2026

Finding ways to engage in meaningful work in this season. This term I am working at Creighton University College of nursing. It’s a privilege to mentor preceptorship students and engage in community health. 🦋

06/26/2026

Life has so many twists and turns. Tonight, I am grateful for Arizona sunsets, for breath, for life.🦋 🦋

06/23/2026

Listen deeply. Act decisively. 🦋

From across the world, Indigenous Midwives came to the ICM Congress to learn that not only had the ICM statement in support of Indigenous midwifery been rescinded, but that the term “Indigenous midwifery” had been made explicitly unwelcome at this Congress.

This systemic erasure of Indigenous midwives, babies, and birthing people is a continuation of the colonial project that has led to the genocide of Indigenous people around the globe.

From Turtle Island to Gaza, from Aoteroa to Sápmi, Indigenous midwifery is the foundation of midwifery practice anywhere and everywhere. It is the collective heritage of our craft.

In their relentless attempt to patent the term “midwife,” ICM standards have criminalized our traditional practitioners and disparaged our ancestral medicines, even as colonial midwives appropriated our ancestral practices and technologies.

No matter the language, ICM does not, has never, will never own the term “Midwife.” Midwifery belongs first and foremost to the communities we serve.

We call on our allies, here and around the world, to hold ICM accountable. To assert their responsibility to repair the colonial legacies imposed on Indigenous peoples. And to stand up in defense of a midwifery that is inclusive to all.

Because if you want a million more midwives, you must start with Indigenous communities. You start with us.

06/21/2026

In Midwifery communities this news is ricocheting through. It’s not just a matter of a paper or position or policy. It represents the echoing of so many generations of indigenous Midwives that have been eradicated or silenced or made invisible.  how we has Midwives respond to this grave Choice will determine how we move forward as a profession. We have an opportunity to be breaking cycles instead of repeating the historical cycle. 🦋

06/20/2026

I am volunteering with the Think Big midwifery initiative. I’d love to have you join me in a virtual listening session Wednesday. Here’s the info on a text thread so you can find it!
We need more midwives by 2030, but too many barriers stand in the way of training and certification.

As a workgroup member and alternate delegate for the Think Big Initiative’s Workforce Development domain, I’m inviting you to our upcoming Community Conversation on Workforce Development on June 24th.

Midwifery education is expensive, geographically concentrated, and doesn’t yet reflect the communities it serves. The shortage falls hardest on rural, low-income, and communities of color. Solving this requires more than more seats in existing programs—it requires building new infrastructure that is local, affordable, and culturally grounded.

We need YOUR wisdom to shape what that looks like. No ongoing commitment required, just show up and share your perspective.

📅 Date: June 24, 2026 | 6:00-7:30 PM EDT
💻 Virtual, open to all.
📝 Can’t attend? A written input form will be shared alongside this event.
🔗 Sign up here: https://qmnc.org/events/273185 
Spread the word!🦋

06/19/2026

This Midwifery leader challenges assumed perceptions in ways that are bold sometimes surprising and always honest. For those of you in healthcare, signing consents is a routine part of the day. This essay challenge is that.🦋

In my essay for the Nursing Clio Reader, I wrote about how traditional consent in healthcare is facilitated and expected submission. Not only does the word “consent” mean “to say yes,” but labeling the supposed process of decision-making - wherein, ethically and legally, the patient has the autonomy to say either yes or no - as one of saying yes is an indicator for how the patient is expected to act, to respond, to defer. When no is never really an option, the process of consent is theater. When submission is the predicted and normalized outcome, let’s say for something like s*x- and gender-based care, the ways in which harms in those care interactions mirror s*xual assault and r**e culture are all the more obvious. Consent is not submission, and no is not a problem to be managed if autonomy is the ethical and clinical principle we otherwise claim to hold dear. Autonomy becomes a façade, or, more likely, it always has been for some people in some circumstances. Robust attention to s*xual and reproductive ethics as its own framework illuminates these flaws in the healthcare industrial complex that many of us survive through.

Reviving some "old" writing because why not, because , because I really liked this essay, but also because putting together PPTs and syllabi for s*x and repro ethics work is necessary for so many reasons, the first of which is the absolute sham that autonomy is in our specific realm of care work (that ultimately serves as an example for how consent is a broken system everywhere in care, btw).