Birth Roots Community Midwifery is honored to serve communities of the Chicagoland area, the original lands of the Anishinaabe (ä-ni-shiˈnȯ-bā) - Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe (ō-jib′-wā), Odawa (ō-dah-wah), and Bodéwadmi (potawatomi), the Haudenosaunee (hoe-dee-no-show-nee - Iroquois), Ho-chungra (ho-chunk), Kiikaapoi (kickapoo), Mamaceqtaw (menominee), Wea, Myaamia (miami), and Meshkwahkihaki (meskwaki), and the Illinois Confederation (13 Nations - Kaskaskia, Maroa, Cahokia, Peoria, Tamaroa, Tapouaro, Coiracoentanon, Espeminka, Moingwena, Chinkoa, Chepoussa, and the Michigamea).
We are the ideal midwifery practice for clients seeking holistic, heart-centered, evidence-based home birth attendance, birth and wellness education, mentorship, and reproductive health care.
Birth Roots is a collaboration between longtime dear friends and fellow birth workers Corinne and Coté, and has been in the works for many years as the midwife and doula friends dreamt about how to do their best work together during walks in the woods and time around the fire. The Birth Roots co-founders discovered that they shared a passion for a client-centered, trauma-informed approach to birth work that brings in traditional wisdom – and they are thrilled to be finally bringing it all together in the form of Birth Roots Community Midwifery.
about BIRTH ROOTS COMMUNITY MIDWIFERY
Meet The Birth Roots Team
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Birth Roots Community Midwifery is honored to serve communities of the Chicagoland area seeking holistic, heart-centered, evidence-based midwifery care for home birth attendance, birth and wellness education, mentorship, and reproductive health and wellness care. Birth Roots is a collaboration between longtime dear friends and fellow birth workers Corinne and Coté, and has been in the works for many years as the midwife and doula friends dreamt about how to do their best work together during walks in the woods and time around the fire. The Birth Roots co-founders discovered that they shared a passion for a client-centered, trauma-informed approach to birth work that brings in traditional wisdom – and they are thrilled to be finally bringing it all together in the form of Birth Roots Community Midwifery.
Our team is intentional. We are mindful of the energy we bring into every care experience, from office visits, to home visits, to birth in the intimate spaces of your home. We commit to taking care of ourselves so that we can be present to support you. When we enter your space, we respect and honor the privilege of being part of your journey, and leave behind our ego. This is heart-centered midwifery.
about us
The cornerstone of Birth Roots is client-centered, empowered decision-making. Whether in fertility support, reproductive health, or birth, our team supports client autonomy. We strive to be partners in our clients’ reproductive health and birth journeys, as we recognize that our clients are the true experts in their own health and lives. We offer ourselves as a resource for the clients that choose to work with us, providing information regarding evidence and our experience, while our clients benefit from the opportunity to make birth and wellness plans that place them and their families at the center.
Birth Roots Means Empowered Decision-Making
we stand for:
Birth Roots Means...
The midwifery model of care celebrates reproductive and birth physiology, promotes holistic prevention of pregnancy and reproductive health problems, and recognizes that health is achieved through centering the whole person. Birth Roots works within this model as our team partners with our clients to build wellness and birth safety from the roots – not just in terms of the standard measures of outcomes but including the mental, emotional, and community spheres of health and wellbeing. Our team can also counsel clients on sleep, nutrition, stress management, joyful body movement, family planning methods that meet their needs, and natural comfort measures. We draw on physiology and a natural approach as much as possible, and count on medical testing, pharmacology, and interventions when necessary.
Birth Roots Is Holistic
One-on-one midwifery care is intimate. We offer hour-long routine office (reproductive health, well person, prenatal, and postpartum) visits and limit the number of clients that we accept, because every one of our clients deserves individualized midwife attention and support. We work to build and strengthen the kind of trust and comfort that supports the birth process, reproductive health journey, and smooth entrance to new parenthood. We meet our clients where they are and focus on their priorities, blending the safety of professional midwifery with loving support for our clients’ health needs and wellness values. We also recognize that there is nothing more intimate in birth than being invited into our clients’ homes for this sacred event in their lives. We bring reverence for the power of our clients’ bodies and minds as we bring our calm and professional presence to support your process and cultivate oxytocin and joy together.
Birth Roots is Personal
We believe that birth and intimate healthcare are deeply personal experiences, and we honor the varied reasons that clients seek care from home birth midwives. Regardless of the reason or background of our clients, Birth Roots is here to support birth and reproductive health with dignity. We provide respectful and supportive care to all clients that want to work with us, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, immigration status, body size, gender identity, sexual orientation, partner or marital status.
Birth Roots Is For Everyone
This practice recognizes that birth and reproductive health outcomes are not solely the result of the type of care that clients receive from a healthcare provider, and that social and environmental factors can influence clients’ experience with their bodies and in healthcare settings. We seek to build mutual trust with our clients as we find joy, resilience, and community support can make all the difference in helping our clients meet their goals. We embrace a Health at Every Size approach. We are accountable to the communities that we serve by sharing our outcomes data. We strive to partner with contractors and birth workers from marginalized communities and use our position to decolonize birth work.
Birth Roots Is Anti-Oppression
We recognize that many individuals have experienced trauma that can make having an embodied birth experience, as well as working with a healthcare provider, more challenging – including previous healthcare and birth trauma. We make space in our care for making clients feel safe and respected. We use the talk-before-touch consent model for any intimate care, and listen to our clients’ “no” for any physical touch or evaluation. We provide referrals to trauma-informed providers and practitioners as needed. We are here to listen, to support, and to empower.
BIRTH ROOTS IS TRAUMA-INFORMED
We are humble guests on the original lands of the Anishinaabe (ä-ni-shiˈnȯ-bā) - Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe (ō-jib′-wā), Odawa (ō-dah-wah), and Bodéwadmi (potawatomi), the Haudenosaunee (hoe-dee-no-show-nee - Iroquois), Ho-chungra (ho-chunk), Kiikaapoi (kickapoo), Mamaceqtaw (menominee), Wea, Myaamia (miami), and Meshkwahkihaki (meskwaki), and the Illinois Confederation (13 Nations - Kaskaskia, Maroa, Cahokia, Peoria, Tamaroa, Tapouaro, Coiracoentanon, Espeminka, Moingwena, Chinkoa, Chepoussa, and the Michigamea).
We honor the ancestors that came before us with deep respect and bring our humility toward all cultures and traditions as we strive to decolonize birth. Further, by acknowledging that we practice birth work on stolen land, we extend our gratitude and respect to the land itself, its history, and the peoples who have stewarded it through the generations.
BIRTH ROOTS ACKNOWLEDGES THE ORIGINAL CARETAKERS OF THIS LAND
Meet Corinne!
Corinne is a Certified Nurse Midwife who has been practicing midwifery in the Chicago area since graduating from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) with a Master of Science in Nursing in 2012. Corinne grew up mostly in the northern Chicago suburbs, in a house full of books, and spent their 20s in the California Bay Area, where they studied English and Spanish literature as an undergraduate at first at Mills College, then at University of California at Berkeley – plus a semester abroad at the University of Chile in Santiago. With this background, Corinne never thought they would do such hands-on work as they later found their way to in midwifery – the ultimate unity of heart, mind, and hands.
Corinne Westing: Certified Nurse Midwife and Co-Owner; they/them
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Through their passion for reproductive rights, and when they were searching for a path that aligned with their values and interests, Corinne decided to pursue nursing education to become a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner (WHNP). In those days, birth wasn’t even on Corinne’s radar, as they weren’t yet ready to become a parent, and their friends and community members weren’t yet starting families. While working at a bookstore, a coworker had passed along a photocopied feminist tract, Witches, Midwives, and Nurses by Barbara Ehrenreich, and Corinne got a sense of the connection between the reproductive rights they had been involved in and the colonization of birth work. Beyond what they had read about, Corinne still had no other connection to birth work in those days.
Corinne decided to try out involvement in clinical care by volunteering at a feminist reproductive health clinic in Oakland. There, they got a taste of the power that a non-hierarchical, whole-person approach to care could mean for a person’s life. In that clinic, lay health workers like Corinne sat with clients to provide education and support; review health histories; and provide true informed consent for procedures and treatments. Also during that time, Corinne received an annual wellness exam from a traditional midwife at the clinic that made a huge impression – Corinne had never received care with such a thorough, holistic, and warm approach. Both that personal care experience, and participating at the clinic as a volunteer, planted the seeds for Corinne to become the midwife they are today, even though they had no idea at the time that was where they were headed!
When Corinne moved back to the Chicago area to start the Graduate Entry Program to become an RN at UIC, they started to get a hint that the WHNP wouldn’t be enough to satiate their interest in being present with their clients. Corinne started to meet midwives and dove deeper into the history of birth work–and then a doula friend invited Corinne to observe a birth, to see if that was something that might interest them. From attending that first birth, where the client was empowered, unmedicated, standing in a hospital bathroom, attended by a midwife, Corinne’s oxytocin obsession was unlocked!
Since then, Corinne has worked as a midwife in an FQHC, a small Catholic community hospital, a large teaching hospital, a freestanding birth center, and in home birth. In each setting, Corinne has demonstrated a gift for meeting clients where they are, as well as a commitment to learning and growing as a clinician. As a lifelong learner, Corinne is grateful for every teacher along the way – to those classroom educators, clinical preceptors, mentors, employers, colleagues, and clients that have pushed Corinne to continuously improve in their skills and presence to serve their clients and community at the highest levels.
Corinne’s passion is getting to know clients during care and helping them achieve their best birth and reproductive health outcomes. They also love teaching, whether that is to the next generation of nurses and midwives, family practice physicians, or clients. Corinne brings warmth and professionalism to help clients and fellow birth workers feel at ease.
Outside of birth work, Corinne finds joy in preparing sourdough bread; playing in the dirt in their native plant garden; getting to the woods for backpacking adventures and cross country skiing; and spending time with dear friends and in community. Corinne is a proud member of the Illinois Single-Payer Action Coalition, Evidence Based Birth Academy, Queer and Trans Midwives Association, and the Association for Size Diversity and Health. Corinne is also co-parent to an amazing daughter that was born at home attended by a local CNM, and a full-time dog parent. parentdalmatian-blue heeler rescue pup.
The ultimate unity of heart, minds and hands.
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Born and raised in Chile, Coté moved to the United States in her late 20’s. She is a certified Advanced Holistic Birth & Postpartum Doula with The Matrona, Birth Mentor with Birthing from Within, Herbalist and Placenta Artist & Encapsulator. She is trained with Spinning Babies technique and with CAPPA as Childbirth Educator. She is also the Assistant Director of Whapio and The Matrona, an organization known internationally for offering Holistic Birth Education, Birth & Postpartum Doula Certifications, Entry level Midwifery Education and Wisdom Keeping from venerable elder midwife Whapio.
Coté is a single mom who is solo-parenting her three amazing children and she is the proud owner of Our Healing Roots ~ Holistic Birth Support and Education. Coté is an active trauma informed birth worker in the community and focuses her expertise on facilitating a respected birth experience by supporting mostly unmedicated births at home, at birth centers, and with midwife groups in hospitals. She is currently one of the educators at the Birth Center of Chicago and Burr Ridge Birth Center.
Coté Sáez Garceau, Certified Holistic Doula (The Matrona): Birth Mentor and Co-Owner; she/her/ella
Meet Coté
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After suffering obstetric violence during her first birth in Chile, Coté was left with the “deep knowing” that there had to be another way….she really wanted to grow her family, but as an immigrant who didn't speak English yet, and very aware of the obstetric violence people of color and immigrants suffer in the US health system, with a mix of empowerment and extreme fear of being abused again in the hospital system, Coté was determined to bring her second child into this world OUTSIDE of a system that had already failed her. She found a HOME BIRTH midwife who was kind and compassionate. Although she didn't speak Spanish, she allowed time for translation during prenatal visits and labor. That midwife was Diane Bajus, a CNM and herbalist, and she made a deep impact on Cote’s heart and mind.
Over the past two decades, Coté has found her place as a respected birth worker and community leader known for her kindness and contagious passion for birth and transformation. One of her missions is to create and offer safe spaces for pregnant folks and other birth workers to gather in community, and Coté’s
home has slowly become a place known to have an open door and heart for community and friendship.
Immensely proud of her South American heritage, Coté brings her ancestral roots to her work through kindness, plant medicine, nourishment, and ceremony, offering postpartum closings for her clients and teaching about “La Cuarentena,” a Latin American postpartum tradition of care that brings our attention to the importance of nourishment, community support, and compassion during the often forgotten Fourth Trimester.
Coté hopes to be a bridge between the science and mysticism of birth; between evidence- birth knowledge and ancestral wisdom. She hopes to be the mentor that helps people move from a place of fear of labor into a journey of self discovery, love, and transformation.
By offering Cote’s approach, bringing together midwifery and birth mentorship, we offer a unique and well-grounded model of care that values and honors the emotional and traditional side of birth as equally important and valuable as the clinical part of birth.
Born and raised in Chile, Coté moved to the United States in her late 20’s when her son was 1.5 yrs old.
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Juanita Ahuehuetzin (she/they/ella) is recent midwifery graduate with Certified Professional Midwife, CPM with over 10 years of experience providing labor and birth support to families across Il and WI. Juanita has a BA in Cultural Anthropologist, licensed massage therapist, traditional sobadora/bodyworker, a Certified Parent Educator for Spinning Babies and a Spinning Babies Aware Practitioner. Juanitas experience goes beyond the birth room as she is also a dedicated provider and keeper of traditional cuarentena/postpartum care and birth rituals, practices that she was introduced to by her mother. As a traditional partera/midwife, Juanita provides families with education and time proven practices that allow them to embody their own birthing journeys.
Meet Juanita
