Birth Emergency Skills

Birth emergency skills prepares community members to respond with compassion and skill during unexpected birth emergencies.

Participants will learn:

• Grounding and communication skills for emergency situations
• Signs of normal, emergent, and emergency births
• How to provide support safely until professional help arrives
• Collective care principles to center calm, safety, consent, and dignity

Why does it matter?
Maternal health and birth equity are strengthened when community care becomes the norm. This workshop helps build networks of safety, response, and support across the South Side, so that every birthing family is surrounded by a circle of care in unexpected situations. We all have the capacity to protect, support, and uplift one another. Every person counts.

What to expect:
This offering is a community skillshare that centers on how to be an empowered bystander – offering care, reassurance, and stability until professional medical help arrives or a safe birthing space is reached. This is not a training to become a doula, midwife, paramedic, EMT, or “medic.”

Birth Emergency Skills is open to all – birthworkers, caregivers, and anyone who wants to be a confident, empowered bystander. Space is limited -- please RSVP!

About Ujimaa Medics:
Ujimaa Medics (UMedics) is a Black health collective. We spread emergency first response, community care, and survival skills to access health justice and long-term wellness for all Black lives.

Vision:
We envision a world where Black people are free to practice the principle of “Ujima” (collective work and responsibility) by fostering resilience and a self-determined culture of health within our communities. We will stay ready to protect one another in a more just world.

We are honored to be in partnership with Ujimaa Medics for our Birth Emergency Skills workshop series. Learn more about Ujimaa Medics here.

Support This Program:
Our events are offered free of charge or on a donation basis so that anyone who wants to participate can do so. If you’re able, please consider making a suggested donation of $15-35 to support this work. Every contribution helps sustain community education and birth-centered programming. Thank you for supporting accessible care and community learning.