Meet Nubia Earth Martin

We were lucky to catch up with Nubia Earth Martin recently and have shared our conversation below.

Nubia Earth, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

My purpose found me through my lived experiences welcoming my children into the world. Those experiences, and the way I was able to cultivate and curate what I needed, at one of the most sacred times in my life, set me on a path of living each day in my fullest potential. Everything that I do, all of the services that I offer to my community and the families that I have the honor to serve, are based on a deep reverence for “Call and Response”, and ensuring that the things that I didn’t receive and weren’t readily available to me, are present in abundance for birthing families.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

My name is Nubia Earth Martin and I run a community based, non-profit organization, Birth from The Earth Inc., and we have a brick and mortar location, dedicated to healing and wellness, in the heart of downtown Yonkers, called Earth Groundz. We are passionate about holistic approaches to general wellness, well-wombmen care, and supporting the journey of pregnancy, childbirth and the sacred postpartum period.

We offer a vast array of Childbirth Education workshops, Group Prenatal Care, Village Baby Showers, Moon Mondays, Fatherhood Fridays, Postpartum Ritual and Ceremonies, and Home Birth Midwifery Services.

We also train and educate Birth Workers, offering courses on becoming a Childbirth Educator, Birth Companion, Postpartum Support Companion, Birth Assistant, and have a full program for aspiring and student midwives.

Our focus is centered on increasing access to quality, community-based care, and toppling maternal mortality and morbidity rate disparities, that disproportionately impact Black and Brown families.

We have a short-documentary about our community work that is currently being featured at Film Festivals around the country, and our goal is to shift the narrative about what pregnancy and birth can actually look like, by way of the art of storytelling, promoting facts, not fear, and using imagery of positive home birth journeys to normalize out-of-hospital birth.

We also have two Research Journal Volumes; Uprooting the Soil and The Power of Prevention, packed with information about topics that can impact pregnancy, using a qualitative approach for the articles included in each volume.

I am a Global Midwife by calling, I hold a calabash of Knowledge, Wisdom and Understanding as a Re-Birth Worker. I hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology, a Masters Degree in Midwifery, and a Post-Graduate Degree in International Midwifery and Maternal & Infant Health. I have also had the honor of completing world renown Midwife, Jennie Joseph’s Direct-Entry Midwifery Program at Commonsense Childbirth School of Midwifery, and hold the credentials of a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) and Licensed Midwife (LM)

I am a “woman of two waters’, creating spaces for deep seated healing, and honoring all of the rites of passage, portals, and rituals of life. Connecting to Spirit Babies and the Unborn, walking the journey of pregnancy, holding space for birth, and protecting the sacred postpartum period. Working to reclaim the ancestral practices that have sustained my people allows the legacy and lineage of the Grand Midwives to run deep through me. I see Midwifery, not as a profession, but as a way of life and a rite of passage.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Understanding that we each have a unique path, and when we are living up to our personal potential, we are in essence walking in our purpose

The profound connection between the unborn child, the mother, and the imprint that is created between the co-creators (parents) and baby in womb

The power of community, and collective work to move mountains when necessary

What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?

Honestly, I think the most profound thing that my parents did for me was giving me my name. In all of my global travels, every place I have visited has spoken on the importance of naming ceremonies, and the power that our names hold, as names are attributes. My parents named me Nubia Earth, and I feel that this name fully encompasses who I am, and how I show up in this world this time around. It speaks to my ancestors lineage as descendants of people from the African diaspora, and also my connection to and deep reverence to Mother Earth and all of her abundance. Together my first and middle names pay homage to the knowledge held by those who have come before me, and the wisdom of keeping that information alive and thriving through the use of food as nourishment, herbs as medicine, and a laying on of hands as vital, healing human connection.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.birthfromtheearth.org
• Instagram: @birthfromtheearth
• Facebook: @birthfromtheearth