Brooklyn Midwifery Group
Trinisha Williams, CM, MPH, LCCE, FACCE, CLC
Trinisha Williams began her career in health care in 1999, when she graduated from Hunter College with a Masters in Public Health with a concentration in Women's Health. After completing her MPH, she served as the Coordinating Manager of Health Education in the OB/GYN department at Bellevue Hospital Center, the Community Outreach Manager at the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and as a Health Educator with the Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership. Trinisha became a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator in 2002, and completed a Masters of Science in Midwifery at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in 2003. She spent the next decade working as a midwife and educator in New York City hospitals, and she founded her home birth midwifery practice, Midwife in the City, in 2014. She currently teaches midwifery students at SUNY Downstate and attends home, hospital, and birthing center deliveries. She was hired as the Director of Midwifery at Brooklyn Midwifery Group in 2018.
Yuen Chan, DNP, CNM
Yuen earned a BS in Health Care Management at SUNY Stony Brook in 2003, and went on to earn a BSN from the same university in 2007. After completing her BSN, Yuen began her career as an RN in North Shore University Hospital's Level III NICU. She also promptly enrolled in Stony Brook's Nurse-Midwifery program, and completed her MSN in 2009. Yuen has since cared for women and infants in a variety of settings, including Brookdale Hospital's OB/GYN Department, Lutheran Medical Center's Chinese Health Clinic, the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center, and a private OB/GYN practice. She also serves as an adjunct faculty member at Adelphi University's College of Nursing. Yuen earned her DNP in Nurse-Midwifery at SUNY Stony Brook in 2014, and joined the Brooklyn Midwifery Group in 2015. She is fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese.
Sakina O'Uhuru, CNM
Sakina O’Uhuru has been practicing the art of midwifery for 20 years and has provided maternal child health care in underserved areas for 30 years. She held the position as Site Director and Director of Midwifery Services of Morris Heights Women’s Health & Birthing Pavilion from 1999 to 2004. MHHC was the first clinic to offer out of hospital prenatal labor & delivery services in an underserved community in New York City. Sakina later served as a Clinical Preceptor for midwifery students from SUNY Downstate, Stony Brook, Columbia University, and New York University. In 2002, she founded her private home birth practice, Gentle Spirit Home Birth Midwifery Services. She has attended well over 1,000 out-of-hospital births! In 2013, Sakina founded her non-profit, A Woman's Way. This organization aims to provide community-based educational forums that focus on reducing risk for African American women during pregnancy labor and birth. Sakina also serves on the board of Beco Productions, Journey to Dance, and Soul Summit Music.
Christiane McCloskey, CM
Christiane McCloskey has been a practicing midwife for over 16 years. Her journey began with the birth of her first son and an introduction to the birth world in New York City in the late 1980s. She started working with Childbirth Education Association of Metropolitan New York, and quickly became a “birth groupie”. Along the way, she taught prenatal and postpartum exercise classes, started her own doula service and supported many new mothers through their breastfeeding experience. After the home birth of her second son, it became quite clear that she needed to take her experience and love for birthing to its logical conclusion. She graduated from the SUNY Downstate Midwifery program with a MS in Midwifery and was credentialed as an ACNM Certified Midwife in 2002.
Morenike Jegede, CM
Morenike Jegede earned her BS in Biochemistry in 2010 from Suny Binghamton University. She had a strong desire to become a Midwife, therefore she diligently works hard to complete her prerequisites for midwifery school at Medgar Evers College. In 2012, she was proudly enrolled into the Suny Downstate Masters of Midwifery program. Soon after graduation in 2016, Morenike joined a private OB-GYN practice in Brooklyn, NY providing full scope midwifery care. Morenike has always had a passion for providing quality care for the women and families that she meets. For her, Midwifery brings fulfillment and joy.
Sharon Taylor-Smalls, CNM
Sharon Ann Taylor-Smalls, CNM received her Bachelors and Masters of Science in Nursing, as well as a Master of Science in Social Work from Columbia University in New York City. A strong advocate for women’s health care, support and empowerment for over 30 years, she encourages her patients to consider lifestyle changes that will be to their benefit. Her professional interests focus on health education, disease prevention and the reduction of perinatal mortality and morbidity by engaging and forming strong relationships with the women she serves. She is a member of the NYC Chapter of ACNM.
Shawna King, CM
Since is graduating from the State University of New York at Downstate in 2002 Shawna has had the privilege of caring for families from all boroughs, and in a variety of settings including hospitals, in-hospital birthing centers, free-standing birthing centers and home births.
Shawna has dedicated her practice to providing evidence-based care in a personalized and meaningful way, while striving to form a partnership that empowers people to make informed choices about their bodies and their health. She believes when a relationship of trust and respect is created through intimate collaboration the best outcomes can be achieved.
Shawna considers birth to be a sacred life event and it is a great honor to be a part of the journey.
Midwifery Fellows
Laure Sinnhuber-Giles, CM, LCCE, CLC
Laure Sinnhuber-Giles began her career as a birth worker in 2010 as a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator. The following year, she qualified as a birth doula with DONA International. Laure trained as a midwifery assistant at The Farm Midwifery Center in 2012 and as a Certified Lactation Counselor in 2013. In 2017, she completed her MS in Midwifery at SUNY Downstate. Laure speaks English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese. She joined the Brooklyn Midwifery Group as a Midwifery Fellow in August 2018.
Kyra Caruso, CM, CLC
Kyra is a certified and licensed midwife, birth doula, and childbirth educator. Raised in Europe, surrounded by the women of her Austrian as well as Mexican ancestry, she learned to value the honorable role a woman holds in her community. However, not until she moved to New York City by herself did she realize how fundamental it is for a woman to want to feel protected and supported by other females, particularly during such a significant landmark as childbirth. As Kyra puts it simply: “New life has to be honored. Every human being deserves the right to a gentle entry into our world and every woman needs to feel loved during the transformative experience of pregnancy, birth and motherhood. I am here to help.” Kyra feels it is of utmost importance to create a comfortable, welcoming environment, whether a birth takes place in a hospital, birthing center or at home. Kyra holds a Bachelor of Science degree from The Fashion Institute of Technology and she also studied International Business Management at the University of Vienna. She speaks English, German and Spanish fluently as well as some French. Kyra graduated with a Masters of Science in Midwifery from SUNY Downstate Medical Center in 2019. As a Fellow Midwife she has joined the Brooklyn Birthing Center in October of 2019.
Chloe Campbell, CM, CLC
Chloe grew up in the rolling hills of rural County Down N’ern Ireland, with her feet in the creeks, legs in the brambles and head in the clouds. She relocated to New York City in 2007, pregnant and knee deep in an unfamiliar health care system. After immersing herself in birth literature in preparation for the birth of her first baby in the Spring of 2008, she found herself in a place she never wanted to leave. By the winter of 2009 this inextinguishable passion led her to attend DONA certified birth doula training. With 10 years of practice as a Doula and 5 years of practice as a midwife’s assistant for BK Midwifery, Chloe developed a profound appreciation of birth, informed by the dual influence of families navigating their birth options, and by a community of skilled and experienced homebirth midwives delivering evidence-based care to their clients. A defining characteristic of Chloe’s midwifery education is her view of birth through the lens of a parent, without carrying the burden of clinical responsibility. Chloe graduated from SUNY Downstate with a Master of Science Degree in Midwifery with honors.
Chloe is a qualified Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC) and has provided hundreds of hours of lactation support at home. In April 2020 she will sit for her IBLCE board exams to qualify as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. Chloe is a student of herbal medicine and is in her 10th year of study. She has completed 3 levels of training with the wise and wonderful Karen Rose of Sacred Vibes Apothecary in Ditmas Park and has been on a continuous educational voyage with plant medicine ever since. Chloe hopes that her aptitude for research and appreciation of the innate healing power of plants will contribute to the growing movement of integrative medicine in female bodied health.
When not practicing midwifery you might find Chloe on her front stoop crooning to the ukulele, trampolining with her two wild children or with mermaids at the spa in Coney Island. She lives in Kensington, Brooklyn with her husband and two sons who were born at home on the exact same day, four years apart.
Margaret Ragen, CM, LM, CLC
Margaret attributes her inspiration to pursue a career in midwifery to the home birth midwives who tended to her care during two pregnancies, and providers in general, who advocate for natural childbirth. Midwifery is a 'third' career, having previous experience in the arts in NYC and Portland, Oregon, and yogic studies in India. In 2013, Margaret began working as a doula at Carriage House Birth, then moved onto graduate school at SUNY Downstate to complete her degree in Midwifery in 2018, including clinical experience at Brookdale Hospital and Jacobi Medical Center. In early 2019, she started at BBC as a birth assistant, and in August joined BMG as a Midwifery Fellow. Margaret is committed to providing and advocating for women’s empowerment, and to supporting families in their right to choose where and how they receive maternal care. She is a member of the NYC Midwives community and of the NYC Chapter of ACNM.
Consulting Obstetricians and Owners
Norma Veridiano, MD, JD
As co-founder of Brooklyn Birthing Center, Norma Veridiano, MD, has been an invaluable source of support and guidance in the development of our practice. She is a board certified OB / GYN with a large private practice in Brooklyn. Although she has retired from the practice of obstetrics, she remains a terrific referral for clients in need of gynecological follow-up not within the purview of midwives.
James Ducey, MD, FACOG
James Ducey, MD is a board certified OB / GYN and Perinatologist (high risk specialist). He is Director of both the Division of Maternal / Fetal Medicine and the Center for Women’s Health at Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH) North Shore LIJ. He will not permit any attending OB physician at SIUH to perform a primary elective cesarean section. He recognizes that the maternal mortality rate in the US is on the rise because of the dramatic increase in unnecessary cesarean sections. Dr. Ducey is available 24/7 for consultation on any question regarding our clients. He reviews all new OB charts, and reviews all client charts at 36 weeks to ensure that clients are eligible to birth at BBC in compliance with our Policies and Procedures.
Specialists and Educators
Tova Ovits, IBCLC
Tova graduated from Pace University with a BA in English. While nursing her youngest child, she read The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding and discovered how much she didn’t know while nursing her older kids. Tova has been dedicated to providing lactation support ever since. She became a La Leche League Leader and International Board Certified Lactation Consultant to help even more families enjoy a healthy, happy beginning.
Robin Douthit, LCCE, CD, CLC, MA
Robin was introduced to the world of birth by her two children. Passionate to share her knowledge and experience with others she became a certified birth doula through DONA International in 2003, received certification as a childbirth educator through
Lamaze International in 2012, and is trained and certified as a Lactation Counselor through the Healthy Children Project since 2014. In April 2019 she will begin serving on Lamaze International’s Board of Directors. She holds a degree in English Literature from Adelphi University, and a Master’s degree in Counseling from New York University. Robin’s desire is to share the good news that birth can be a beautiful experience, without fear and anxiety, and with good information and an understanding of The Simple Story of Birth, everyone can enter into their birthing journey with joy and confidence instead of worry and fear. Birth can be glorious!
