About the Center
Chicago South Side Birth Center is a non-profit, independent, Black midwife-led Birth Center located on the South Side of Chicago.
Our Vision
The Chicago South Side Birth Center will help address inequities in birth outcomes by providing culturally centered midwifery care alongside families and within the community to promote wellness and abundance in whole health.
With only four hospitals on the South Side providing maternity services, the lack of access to care is an emergency. Without proper intervention and care, rates of infant and maternal morbidity will increase and access will continue to be a barrier. It is our goal at the Chicago South Side Birth Center to disrupt these maternal health outcomes for Black birthing people and their families across the city’s South Side.
We aim to offer a low risk option for birth and mixed risk option for reproductive health care for people in their own neighborhood and community. We hope to be an answer to the lack of care options currently available on the Southside as well as a solution to the disparate maternal and child health rates among Black birthing people and children on the South Side.
Our story
“All that you touch you change…”
It was in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd when Jeanine Valrie Logan and Karie Stewart, two Black midwives, came together to change the landscape of Black maternal Health on Chicago’s south side with a vision to open a birth center. Alongside them and many other and Birth Center activists and legislative sponsors, Jeanine helped write and pass HB738 which expands birth centers in the state of Illinois to areas where the Black maternal and child health outcomes are worse than the county and state–these areas including the South Side, West Side, and East St. Louis. HB738 was signed into law in August 2021.
Jeanine founded Chicago South Side Birth Center in June 2021.
*Earthseed, Parables of the Sower, Octavia Butler
Our Guiding Principles
“Freedom is a place”
Ruth Wilson Gilmore
Donate to the cause
Your Support Matters
Donor contributions help us to develop our beautiful future home and the services we will provide. Chicago South Side Birth Center is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and all donations are tax deductible. Our tax ID# is 87-1221956.
We thank you for your support!