We focus on safety, quality and equity in maternity care, for every person, every time. We are renowned for our ability to reduce racial and health disparities in perinatal and maternal health care in the USA since 2003.
At Commonsense Childbirth, we work to eliminate racial disparities in perinatal health by rebuilding trusted, deeply rooted and culturally centered systems of care and support. We honor the experiences and needs of women, birthing people, their families, and the community-based providers who care for them.
The JJ Way® Model is effective in reducing disparities and improving outcomes because it operates from the premise that every parent who chooses to birth wants a healthy baby and that every parent deserves one.
Additionally, patients and their family supporters are encouraged to operate the same way and are therefore invited in as an integral part of each prenatal visit.
We believe that all people have the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we care for with equitable resources to thrive in community.
Our programs operate across the perinatal health ecosystem with a focus on safety, quality and workforce development in support of – and rooted in – our vision for equitable perinatal care.
Our Florida Easy Access Clinic™ (EAC) and birth center exist as models for replication across the U.S. serving low-income, uninsured and people who are unable to find providers to ensure all pregnant people, especially the most vulnerable receive safe, quality care regardless of their financial circumstances.
The Birth Place offers a choice of midwifery prenatal care with birth center delivery, or midwifery prenatal care with physician delivery at the hospital.
The National Perinatal Task Force is a grassroots movement to start and grow Perinatal Safe Spots (PSS) in every ‘Materno-toxic Area™’ in the USA, in order to eliminate racial and class disparities in birth outcomes, and to create equity and power in maternal child health care.
Guided by fierce love for our families and communities, the National Perinatal Task Force seeks to dismantle the braid of oppression impacting communities of color. We recognize strength and abundance in the breadth of our intersectional collective in order to harness the limitless power of our lived experiences.
CCSM offers a midwifery education experience that emphasizes re-empowering women and families so that they can once again safely experience ‘their birth, their way’ while focusing on teaching the art of out-of-hospital birth, differentiating between low-risk and high-risk pregnancies and preparing students to operate as professional midwives.
We aim to inspire change in maternal child health care systems; to re-empower the birthing mother, father, family and community by supporting the providers, practitioners and agencies that are charged with their care.
We have utilized The JJ Way® Maternal Child Health methodology, designed by our founder – Midwife Jennie Joseph, and we are successfully reducing racial disparities while growing and diversifying the community-based perinatal workforce in the USA .
The JJ Way® is a ‘way of being’ that centers the parent/baby/family first and always, as opposed to centering their condition, the provider or the healthcare agency.
If you or your loved one are not receiving reassuring and satisfactory answers to these and other questions please seek support immediately from an accessible Perinatal Safe Spot™ provider, a community birth center, consider sending a review through Irth app, send a complaint to your state perinatal quality collaborative (PQC) or directly to your health insurance company. Please watch the CBS This Morning video here to learn more about advocating for yourself and your loved ones through pregnancy and birth.
- Are your maternity providers “birthing friendly”? Let them tell you HOW or IF they are designated as birthing friendly ….
- Ask your prenatal team
- Ask your labor and delivery team
- Ask your postpartum/ infant feeding team
*If you don’t have access to these teams find your local Perinatal Safe Spot™ and ask for support in finding safe care as soon as possible
- Is your chosen birthing space “safe”?
- Will your questions be welcomed and answered to your satisfaction?
- Will you be a part of the decision making process?
- Will your chosen supporters, family or friends be integrated?
- What are the current rates of transfers, inductions, cesarean and Neonatal ICU admissions?
- How are emergencies handled?
- How is human milk feeding supported?
- Do they acknowledge your Birth Plan/ Birth Wishes?
- Does your care team CARE?
- How are other maternity providers and collaborators integrated into your “care” team?
- Which team member is your ‘go to’ for additional support? Do you know their name?
- Will there be feedback, follow up and information sharing after office visits, delivery, and postpartum?
- How far into postpartum can you expect support and from who?
Friends,
Our Commonsense Childbirth team continues to pull off the ‘near-impossible’ in service to our Central Florida community through our English and Spanish language Easy Access Clinics™, and our 21-year old birth center The Birth Place. We are still holding tight with our ‘no one turned away policy’!
Our National reach is growing exponentially – Commonsense Childbirth School of Midwifery, our hybrid training program for community midwives has 33 enrolled students currently, and we graduated 5 in 2025. Additionally our National Perinatal Task Force has increased to 396 perinatal Safe Spots™(PSS) across the USA – safe havens of love and support for pregnant and parenting families.
We are proud of our work and cognizant of the fact that so much more still needs to be done. But we are ready and able to do it, and just like labor, we will not give up until we get the baby born!
Grateful thanks for your continued support!! ~ Jennie
Check out images of our crew.
