The Power of Perseverance
Boston Midwife Prepares to Open Alabama’s First Birth Center
Dr. Stephanie Mitchell, DNP, CNM, CPM To the casual observer, opening Birth Sanctuary Gainesville might not make a lot of sense. First, Gainesville is a rural town in Alabama with a population of less than 200. Second, because of state regulations that severely restrict the scope of care nursemidwives can provide, there are no birth centers in the entire state. That is about to change because Dr. Stephanie Mitchell, DNP (Class 130), CNM, CPM, plans to open Birth Sanctuary Gainesville later this year. While the uncertainties are many, Mitchell insists, “It will get done.” Mitchell is the sort of person who finds ways to get things done. Barriers represent an opportunity rather than a permanent roadblock. Even her road to becoming a nurse-midwife was a circuitous one. Where others might have given up and changed course, Mitchell never wavered from her plan.
Growing up in urban Boston, Massachusetts, in the 1980s, Mitchell’s first thoughts of pursuing a medical career began by watching The Cosby Show.
for six years before applying to Frontier. She continued working in labor and delivery while she earned her MSN and DNP from FNU, the latter in 2019.
“My very first exposure to childbirth was on television,” Mitchell said of The Cosby Show. “It was very shocking to me because the family would have mirrored my family, except that they were completely different echelons of human society. We were struggling along in the hood, the ghetto, dealing with all the things that 1980s Boston brought for a low-income black family. It was the opposite on TV. The father was an obstetrician, and the mother was a lawyer. That was my first exposure to pregnancy, and the healthy dynamic of that family really appealed to me and stuck with me.”
“The way my body was honored during that process of pregnancy is really cemented into my mind. I figured out that the word wasn’t ‘obstetrician’ or ‘obstetrics’ – it was ‘midwife’. I thought, ‘How do I do that?”
Her second exposure to pregnancy and her first to obstetrics came a few years later when she was 16 and pregnant. She had collaborative care with an obstetrician and a midwife. “The way my body was honored during that process of pregnancy is really cemented into my mind,” she said. “I figured out that the word wasn’t ‘obstetrician’ or ‘obstetrics’ – it was ‘midwife’. I thought, ‘How do I do that?’” She did that by having her baby, finishing high school, attending community college, and going on to earn her BSN from Curry College. She knew she wanted to be a midwife and wanted to attend Frontier Nursing University. She also knew that she needed to gain experience, preferably in labor and delivery. She worked in pediatrics for about six years before getting into a labor and delivery unit, where she worked
6 Frontier Nursing University • Quarterly Bulletin
“The hospital I worked at was a lovely place in the backdrop of my neighborhood in Boston. I learned so much and have deep respect for my colleagues there,” Mitchell said. “But it was shocking to me to get to the labor and delivery unit and realize that the medical staff was not reflective of the community. I had come from the Boston Children’s Hospital, and we had a very diverse staff. I got to the labor and delivery unit, and it was shocking to be one of three black nurses on a staff of 120 in that unit. That was difficult because there are so many stark cultural differences between the care providers and those that they are caring for.” Mitchell had learned the importance of diversity at an early age when she was part of a busing program aimed at addressing segregation in the city. She attended school in a predominantly white school system.
