As women are looking to experience births with fewer interventions and less clinical, Kindred Space LA is offering a space, while aiming to reduce the shocking Black maternal mortality rate in LA County.
"We decided years ago we wanted to open a birth space," Kimberly Durdin, co-founder of Kindred Space LA, said.
She and Allegra Hill are midwives, licensed by the California Medical Board.
"This is my dream job," Hill said.
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The women founded Kindred Space LA, a birthing center you’d never know is behind nondescript glass doors in a South LA/Hyde Park neighborhood.
"It doesn’t feel clinical. We can do the clinical stuff and we have all the tools but it feels more comfortable," Allegra said.
Lee-Lonn Walker’s wife, Deedra, delivered their first child at the birthing center.
"I looked around and like man, I’m surrounded by all these women that made us feel like we were family from the jump," he said.
Deedra was also well aware of the high mortality rates for Black women across the country and across all socioeconomic levels.
"I was fairly healthy, low-risk, no prior medical condition, so if I didn’t have to be in the hospital I didn’t want to be," she said.
In LA County, Black women are four times more likely to die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth.
Their babies are two to three times more likely to die within the first year.
By offering prenatal care, delivery, and postpartum health services, Kindred Space LA is reducing the Black maternal mortality rate, one healthy baby at a time.
