THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING, SEE YOU IN 2025!
Photos beautifully captured by Moses Ajibade, ONG Photography.
2023 Birth & Beyond Themes
Unity in Birth Equity
In alignment with one of the Summit's goals to grow a community and network of stakeholders committed to advancing birth equity, the theme for day 1 of the Summit is “Unity in Birth Equity.” We hope to unite all of the different disciplines in the maternal and child health and birth equity space by highlighting collaborative, community-driven practices working together toward the common goal of improving maternal/child health outcomes by tapping into community strengths.
Building the Bridge Between Policy and the People
Building the capacity of community leaders in maternal health to shape programs, policy, and care and to engage in evidence-based advocacy is vital to advancing birth equity. There is a large disconnect between policymakers and the communities impacted by their decision-making. We hope that by convening stakeholders from the policy-making space, academia, public health, and the community, we can engage in discussions that will close the gap between policies and the individuals affected by them.
Engaging Community in Evidence Building
The Summit aims to share community-driven research practices and initiatives to tackle critical issues in birth equity and maternal/child health, including research engagement, innovative programming, policy/advocacy, and other special topics. HealthConnect One understands the importance of engaging with the communities we hope to impact. We believe that the lived experiences of individuals in these communities provide valuable insight into what will promote positive maternal/child health outcomes beyond birth and undo historical harm and trauma.
2023 Birth and BEYOND HACKATHON
HealthConnect One hosted their first annual Hackathon during the 2023 Birth and Beyond Summit with the help of the American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact.
The Birth & Beyond Summit’s Hackathon brought together innovators, activists, and community members to develop solutions for birth equity and reproductive justice movements. Through this event, their objective was to link communities to tools, resources, and supporters, fostering motivated relationships to bring solutions to life through open innovation and collaboration. At the end of the hackathon, teams proposed their birth equity community-driven solutions to a panel of judges who provided feedback and selected Team Allomilk as the winner.
Team Allomilk's hackathon presentation introduced a mobile application called Allomilk, designed to address the infant feeding crisis by ensuring equitable access to milk expression and milk sharing.
Congratulations to Team AlloMilk!
HACKATHON judges
Goals
The goals of the 2023 Birth & Beyond Summit are to:
- Build the capacity of community leaders in maternal health to shape programs, policy, and care and to engage in evidence-based advocacy.
- Share community-driven practices and initiatives to tackle critical issues in birth equity and maternal/child health, including research engagement, innovative programming, policy/advocacy, and other special topics.
- Grow a community and network of stakeholders committed to advancing birth equity through community-centered and driven approaches.
- Promote educational opportunities and open, reflective discussion about the most recent research on complex issues in maternal/child health, birth equity, and reproductive justice.
- Convene a diverse network of stakeholders and practitioners to engage in learning, discussion, and action planning around small and large ways that community-driven change can be implemented to support birthing families and advance birth equity.
- Engage diverse stakeholders with best practices and data on the value of peer-to-peer support, including breastfeeding peer counselors, community-based doulas, and community health workers
- Cultivate a space for co-creation, healing, dreaming, directional learning, and listening that builds on and centers the work, experience, and wisdom of Black, brown, and indigenous birthing people, communities, leaders, and scholars.
2023 Birth & Beyond Summit Tracks
Policy/Advocacy
The Policy and Advocacy track encompasses a wide range of topics that influence decision-makers. This track will focus on advocacy, lobbying, and education. It will also include capacity building, relationship building, forming networks, and leadership development related to reproductive justice and birth equity.
Innovative Programming
The Innovative Programming track aims to develop multi-sector partnerships and innovative solutions to improve maternal/child health outcomes.
Research/Evaluation
The Research and Evaluation track highlights research in the maternal/child health space. We hope that researchers and students can share different methods for making the birthing space more equitable. Evaluation research focused on programming, practice, and systems will also be a focus of this track.
Community Research Engagement
The Summit also aims to focus on community-engaged research in partnership with families, community leaders, health service systems, community-based organizations, and other stakeholder groups.
Special Topics
Special Topics serves as an umbrella term for all maternal/child health topics that are not included in any of the above-mentioned tracks. This track puts special emphasis on studying a variety of topics and areas of practice related to birth equity and maternal/child health.
Sample areas of focus for special topics include but are not limited to the following topics: wellbeing, disability health, environmental health, epidemiology, health admin