Welcome to Sweet Roots

About La Tonia

My choice to practice as a traditional midwife is an act of reclamation. An act of resistance. It is a path that honors the work, knowledge, and care of the Black Grand Midwives who came before me. It also uplifts, supports, and centers black people, their families, and our community.

I am a Black queer traditional midwife who carries the traditions of Southern Black Grand midwives in my hands and heart.

I have been serving and supporting pregnant people and families since 2015. First as a child birth educator and doula and now as a traditional midwife. My journey “officially” began when I trained as a birth doula. However, I have known for as long as I can remember that I wanted to support pregnant people.

I didn’t have the word midwife in my vocabulary at that time, but I knew I wanted to care for pregnant people and my community from a young age. So, after attending my first few births as a doula, it was clear to me that midwifery school was my next step. I graduated from Birthwise Midwifery School in June 2021 after 3 years of academic training and preceptorships with community midwives in Washington state. I have learned so much and I am still learning from every birth that I attend and from every family that chooses me to guide and support them during their pregnancy, birth, and in the postpartum.

My work as a midwife is to provide care that creates a space for families to actively determine and participate in their care at every level. A space that prepares families to transition and cross the threshold from pregnancy to parenting. This allows people to reclaim their bodily autonomy, their voice, their strength, and their softness. Midwifery care is so much more than prenatal, birth, and postpartum care.

Midwifery is communal. Ancestral.

Sweet Roots is a practice that is founded on relearning, returning to, and reclaiming community and ancestral pregnancy, birth, and postpartum traditions and practices.

This practice is Black and queer.