BIPOC
BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous, and people of color. Pronounced “bye-poc,” this is a term specific to the United States, intended to center the experiences of Black and Indigenous groups and demonstrate solidarity between communities of color. In NM we prioritize the Indigenous experience and use IB-POC with the same meaning.

Birth Equity
The assurance of conditions of optimal births for all people with a willingness to address racial and social inequities in a sustained effort.

Birth Justice
[Black Women Birthing Justice] believes that Birth Justice exists when women and transfolks are empowered during pregnancy, labor, childbirth and postpartum to make healthy decisions for themselves and their babies.

Birthing Person
Someone who gives birth, regardless of their gender identity.

Doula
A trained professional who provides continuous physical, emotional and informational support to a birthing person before, during and after childbirth to help them achieve the healthiest most satisfying experience possible. Many doula’s tend to pregnant and birthing people regardless of pregnancy outcome. Doulas offer professional birth services and are not a birthing person’s visitor or non-professional support person. A doula may also be known as a birth worker or birth assistant. There are cultural names for doulas, that are ofttimes more appropriate than the term doula, and vary from community to community.

Health Equity
Health equity is achieved when every person has the opportunity to attain his or her full health potential and no one is disadvantaged from achieving this potential because of social position or other social circumstances.

Historical Trauma
Historical trauma is multigenerational trauma experienced by a specific cultural, racial or ethnic group.

Holistic Care
Holistic care treats the whole person: mind, body, and spirit.

Midwife
Clinical providers trained to offer intentionally compassionate and holistic prenatal, postpartum, and reproductive health care to women in and out of hospital settings. There are several different licenses afforded to midwives and many midwives offer well woman care throughout a woman’s life course, not just during or after pregnancy.

Obstetric Violence
The law defines obstetric violence as the appropriation of a woman’s body and reproductive processes by health personnel, in the form of dehumanizing treatment, abusive medicalization and pathologization of natural processes, involving a woman’s loss of autonomy and of the capacity to freely make her own decisions about her body and her sexuality, which has negative consequences for a woman’s quality of life.

Perinatal Health
The health of birthing people and babies before, during, and after birth.

Reproductive Justice
The human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable environments.