A Wayne State Nursing alumna’s answer to Detroit’s maternal health crisis

"Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than White women. Birth Detroit aims to change that," said Char'ly Snow, MSN, RN, a Wayne State University College of Nursing alumna, current member of the College's Board of Visitors and Co-founder and Chief Clinical Officer of Birth Detroit. "Maternal mortality rates are significantly higher in Detroit for Black women than for any other group of women," she said.

That reality is what pushed Snow and her co-founders to create Birth Detroit, a Black-led, midwifery maternal health practice offering birthing services, classes, wellness care and prenatal and postpartum care. Built in Detroit to serve Detroit families, the organization was created to expand access to midwifery services and birth center care while addressing long-standing gaps, including the shortage of accessible midwifery care and the lack of a birth center option in the city.

Midwifery is a healthcare profession that provides personalized, holistic care during pregnancy, childbirth, the postpartum period and newborn care during the first 28 days of life.

"We wanted to increase access to midwifery care," she said. "Birth Detroit is the first and only freestanding, community birth center in Detroit."

Birth Detroit's story is also a story about community trust and community ownership.

Before launching services, Snow said the team pursued extensive community validation and found overwhelming support for the concept. Even then, the organization started without the funding that typically underwrites new care models. "We didn't know how we were going to move forward with no funding, but doing nothing was not an option," Snow said.

Birth Detroit opened its doors in October 2020 out of a donated space with no federal funding and no guarantee of what came next. What kept it going was the community itself. Donors stepped up. People bought merchandise.

"Most of the land that Birth Detroit sits on was purchased with merchandise sales," said Snow. "The community literally helped build Birth Detroit."

Snow describes the care model itself as a deliberate strategy to improve outcomes and rebuild trust. "In general, midwifery care is such a high touch model of care," she said, emphasizing relationship-building and client experience as essential components of quality.

At Birth Detroit, she said care begins with a whole-person assessment. "We are doing an assessment of their social drivers of health from hello," Snow said.

She also points to outcome patterns she associates with birth center care and midwifery, including "higher rates of breastfeeding initiation" and "lower rates of pre-term birth," alongside an approach that includes wraparound supports that help families feel prepared for birth and supported postpartum.

Another part of the work, Snow says, is simply helping people understand what Birth Detroit is. "The biggest misconception is that we're a program," she said. "We are a service, a care service we provide independently."

She also stresses that midwifery is broader than many people assume. "As midwives, we are trained and capable of taking care of you throughout this course of your reproductive journey," she said, underscoring that care extends beyond pregnancy and delivery.

Snow describes impact in human terms: families feeling welcomed, heard and supported beyond a checklist. She described postpartum home visitation and postpartum support groups as tangible ways the organization identifies needs that may not surface in a clinic visit and helps families build community with one another.

As Birth Detroit grows, Snow's work also extends into the institutional spaces where long-term change can be accelerated. She is a current member of the Wayne State University College of Nursing Board of Visitors, which she sees as aligned with her "beyond the bedside era" and her commitment to systems-level impact.

"I am interested in making changes that impact systems," she said, describing a desire to shape models of care and institutions.

Snow also views representation as a responsibility in those rooms, especially given the limited visibility of midwifery in many leadership settings. She described board service as a forum where she can represent her identities and professional perspective and bring forward advocacy that translates into action.

When asked what she wants people to remember most, Snow returns to the line that guides her work and frames Birth Detroit's mission as both an urgency and an invitation:"We are no longer asking permission to save our lives," she said. "We are saving our own lives, and we invite you to lead with us."