Outside the Hospital Walls: Exploring Community Birth, Midwifery, and Sustainable Financing Solutions

Across the country, families are seeking birth experiences that reflect their values, cultures, and preferences through community birth centers, home birth, midwifery-led care, tribal and culturally rooted birth traditions, and other community-based models. While these approaches have the potential to improve maternal and infant health outcomes and expand access to respectful, person-centered care, they continue to face significant policy, financing, and systems-level barriers.

Join midwives, doulas, clinicians, policymakers, researchers, advocates, payers, community leaders, and families for a day of learning, collaboration, and bold ideas as we explore how community birth can become a more accessible, sustainable, and integrated part of our health care system.

Participants will:

• Explore the diverse landscape of community-based birth models and settings.
• Learn how midwives, doulas, birth centers, and community providers are advancing equitable maternal health.
• Examine innovative financing and reimbursement strategies that strengthen community birth options.
• Discover promising practices and collaborative solutions from communities across the country.
• Together, we’ll explore what’s possible when communities, health systems, and policymakers work together to expand equitable birth options and build a stronger continuum of maternal care.

Save the date: September 1, 2026. Registration information and additional details will be coming soon.