Nashira Baril | Imagining a Future Where Every Community Has a Birth Center

Nashira Baril | Imagining a Future Where Every Community Has a Birth Center

In this powerful talk, public health advocate and Neighborhood Birth Center founder Nashira Baril shares her personal journey into birth equity, from witnessing her mother’s homebirths as a child to confronting the stark realities of maternal health outcomes in the United States.

She introduces the vision behind the Neighborhood Birth Center in Roxbury, a new model for full-spectrum, culturally grounded, and community-based care. MASS, the nonprofit architecture firm collaborating with Nashira to design the center, shares in the belief that every community deserves dignified, humane, and equitable birth spaces.

Through storytelling, history, and an invitation to imagine a different future, Nashira calls us to move toward a world where birth centers are accessible, sustainable, and central to community wellbeing.