OUR APPROACH
Beloved: A Vision for Gold-Standard Care
Midwifery-led, community-centered care grounded in public health and healthcare delivery systems has always held the answers families need. Our approach closes gaps in access and outcomes, so every family—especially Black families carrying the greatest burden of harm—can thrive.
OUR PHILOSOPHY
Our Beloved Approach to Birth Care
Six principles guide our vision for care transformation, from first visit through postpartum and beyond.
Empowering Families
Families are honored as decision makers, equipped with the information and support for a confident birth.
Held in Community
In groups, families receive care from providers who share their lived experience, creating a built-in village of support.
Midwifery-led
We generate evidence, shape policy, and build a movement that grows demand for evidence-based community-centered care.
Holistic
Care nurtures mind, body, and spirit, providing wrap-around wellness services to support nutrition, movement, mental health, and more.
Seamlessly Integrated & Safe by Design
Public health, healthcare delivery, and community collaborate. Families move easily between care settings based on their needs.
Accountable & Evolving Responsibly
Health systems listen to community and keep improving and evolving so every family receives the highest quality care.
OUR ECOSYSTEM
Integrating the Ecosystem of Birth Equity
Beloved Birth Collective was born in 2020 as a grassroots community collective, created to help co-design our community’s Black birth equity group prenatal care program, within Alameda County’s Perinatal Equity Initiative. To transform birthing care, Beloved Birth brought three vital pillars into partnership:
Public Health
Alameda Health System
Perinatal equity program design, community and BBBC alumni engagement, childbirth education resource creation, wrap-around holistic wellness service curation, evaluation, and more.
Healthcare Delivery
Alameda Health System
Co-facilitation of Centering group visits, care coordination, and connection to the supplies, resources, and referrals that families need for a healthy and well-supported pregnancy.
Community
Beloved Birth Collective
Midwifery-led, team-based clinical care for pregnancy, birth, and postpartum, supporting all care needs, from low-risk to medically complicated pregnancies requiring Maternal Fetal Medicine support.
BELOVED BIRTH BLACK CENTERING
Our Transformative Vision in Action
In Oakland California in 2020, in collaboration with our local public health department, Alameda County Health, and our safety-net healthcare delivery system, Alameda Health System, our team helped co-design our flagship perinatal care program, Beloved Birth Black Centering (BBBC).
BBBC combines multiple evidence-based strategies from the Beloved Birth Transformation vision for care to offer our Black families the highest quality community-centered group perinatal care.
In its first five years, BBBC has dramatically transformed care experiences and health outcomes for our community.
Expecting in Oakland or Alameda County, CA?
Are you pregnant and interested in getting prenatal care in Beloved Birth Black Centering? Reach out to learn more and secure your spot in an upcoming group.
Call the enrollment coordinator at (510) 847-1893 and/or email at centering@alamedahealthsystem.org
“[Beloved] provides info to families; step by step "game plans" for pregnancy, birth, labor, and postpartum; and forms a safe space & community for mothers.”
- Beloved Mama
OUR VALUES
What Guides Our Work
Six principles guide how we help systems transform care, form first visit through postpartum and beyond.
Liberation & Body Autonomy
Every person has the right to informed choice about their body, pregnancy, and birth.
Birth & Reproductive Justice
Equity, dignity, and freedom in perinatal care are matters of justice, not optional extras.
Holistic &
Accessible Care
High-quality care honors mind, body, and spirit and should be accessible to every family.
Joy & Healing
Joy is a powerful force for healing, a necessity and a form of restoration for our community.
A just perinatal system weaves together trust, collaboration, and shared leadership.
Integration & Co-Creation
OUR NETWORK NEWSLETTER
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