A passionate advocate for the unborn ORLANDO SENTINEL

Midwife Jennie Joseph teaches mothers 'how to grow a healthy baby.'

Darryl E. Owens
Sentinel Staff Writer

"So you're going to do it again?"

The thin girl with a gentle bulge in her belly nods, smiling. Intended or not, Jennie Joseph's question is a double-entendre. First, Jamie Pettway is pregnant again. Second, just 15 months have passed since she delivered her daughter, Daviona, in a softly lighted room down the hall at The Birth Place Birthing Center in Winter Garden.

With Pettway seated on the exam table, Joseph straps a blood-pressure sleeve on her arm and reviews her chart.

"You feeling well?"
"I'm sick this go-round, a lot."
"Make sure you're getting whole grain. Make sure you're getting proteins. That's the important thing."

Pettway nods, as the advice sinks in. Now 18, the Orlando woman was a typical pregnant teen: by turns fascinated and flummoxed, but mostly unsure of what to do with a baby, let alone how to nurture its prenatal growth. Then, someone gave her Joseph's name

That's how it works here. Unsure girls and young women come through word of mouth,or through a persuasive word from this crusading British expatriate, a midwife by trade, an advocate for unborn babies by necessity.

For 17 years, Joseph, 47, has delivered her word through seminars, a radio talk show, and education campaigns to poor women about the need for prenatal care.

Nationally and in Orange County, black babies face more than twice the risk of dying before celebrating their first birthday as babies of other races.

Joseph has no patience for the status quo: "I think we've become used to seeing the statistics, saying, 'that's awful,' and moving on," she says.

Growing a baby

Already mother to 3-year-old Leon and 17-month-old Noel, Melanie Best figured childbirth was old hat. Pregnant again, she heard about Joseph through her mothers group and decided to try the midwife way. Best, 28, appreciated how Joseph dispensed "tips on diet, good ways to eat to grow a nice baby."

Unlike most of Joseph's clients, Best has insurance -- and the wisdom to have sought early care.

"Our system is set up for our women to fail," Joseph says. Because of that, many poor women deliver "tiny, scrappy 4-pound things that aren't well. They don't understand how to grow a healthy baby."

What Jennifer Susan Joseph didn't understand when she arrived in Central Florida in 1989, eight years after graduating from a London midwifery school, was why "it's a negative experience sometimes in this country to be pregnant. In England, a pregnant woman is treated like a queen."

While working with area birthing centers and developing a midwife program at the School of Complementary Medicine in Oviedo, Joseph soon noticed disparities that affected pregnant minority women. Often they were less likely to be insured, meaning they either received medical attention late in pregnancy, or often, not at all. Those patterns were particularly pernicious for black women whose babies weighed less and were more at risk for developmental woes.

So eight years ago she founded Commonsense Childbirth Inc. to provide pregnancy services to indigent clients in the Parramore and Pine Hills communities. Later, she joined the Orange County Healthy Start Coalition, which battles infant mortality. As outreach coordinator she pioneered the Save Our Babies campaign, which started outreach in churches and beauty salons -- stylists handed out tip sheets and talked up prenatal care.

"Jennie gets impatient with the health-care system in the U.S.," says Linda Sutherland, executive director of the Healthy Start Coalition. She "just wants to make it easier for women to get the care they need and deserve without a hassle."

That drive led her to open Jennie Joseph Family Services six years ago in Pine Hills. She welcomes all comers, provides screenings with or without Medicaid, sometimes paying for it out of her own pocket. Her view: Unborn children shouldn't suffer because you cannot afford several hundred dollars for a doctor visit.

Though her practice shifted to Winter Garden in 2003, her vision remains steadfast.

"If we can empower women to be participants in this -- if Mom connects to the baby early -- they will bring a healthy baby to term,'' she says. "It becomes her job."

Making progress

Inroads have been made. Although it's too soon statistically to say Save Our Babies has reversed the tide, Sutherland thinks more Orange County pregnant women are seeking prenatal care earlier and fewer are smoking or abusing alcohol during their pregnancies, Sutherland says.

Sybil Mercer thinks she knows why.

"Knowledge is power only if you get it and then apply it to your everyday living," says Mercer, who met Joseph last year at a church health summit and since has assisted in community outreach. "Jennie Joseph has it, shares it, and then applies it to every woman that will give her the opportunity to help them throughout their birthing process." So Mercer recently brought her daughter Ashley Walker, pregnant with her first child, to Joseph's clinic to learn the ropes.

Although more women seek prenatal care, old wives' tales and pregnancy myths persist. One girl recently fretted that lifting her hands above her head would coil the umbilical cord around her baby's neck. So the lessons never stop.

Meanwhile, Joseph recently signed a lease on a new site in Pine Hills, a planned one-stop shop where women can apply for Medicaid, meet with Healthy Start outreach workers, and receive prenatal care and mentoring.

Signing the lease was easy. Scrounging donations to help defray freebies for poor and uninsured clients is difficult -- as is resisting the urge to dig in her pockets, which aren't as deep as her commitment that no baby should die for lack of prenatal care.

"She is like the Energizer Bunny," Sutherland says, "putting in more hours than one can imagine, in order to do all she can.''

Darryl E. Owens can be reached at dowens@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5095.

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