CLEVELAND, Ohio — The healthcare nonprofit Village of Healing knows that full-term pregnancies are less likely to result in poor outcomes for mothers and infants. When its pregnant patients reach 39 weeks, or full term, the clinic rocks with joyous cheering, clapping, bell-ringing and a shower of gifts for mom and baby.
Village of Healing’s efforts are showing promise.
About 95% of the health clinic’s pregnant patients had full-term births during the last fiscal year, helping to decrease the number of premature infant deaths, said Da’na M. Langford, Village of Healing co-founder and CEO.
“It is a milestone, and it deserves to be celebrated,” Langford said.
The nonprofit’s leadership — mindful of a 2020 study suggesting that negative health outcomes are cut in half when Black newborns are cared for by Black physicians — believe it’s important to provide Black healthcare providers for patients who want a physician who looks like them.
And they also believe that the region’s disparities — more of Cuyahoga County’s Black babies die before their first birthday than white babies — can be solved.
Village of Healing’s first clinic opened in Euclid in 2022. Now, with its patient load and services expanding, the nonprofit has opened a second clinic in Cleveland’s Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood.
It soon will expand its reach with a Youngstown location.
The Buckeye-Shaker location opened to patients in November, but held a grand opening with an open house this month. Visitors saw a spacious waiting room, and walls adorned with inspirational quotes and artwork by local Black artists.
Exam rooms are named for African-Americans who have made significant contributions to medicine, such as Kizzmekia Corbett, leader of the scientific team that developed the Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccine.
“We know that this works and that this is a part of the solution,” Langford said about the clinic’s culturally sensitive approach. “We recognize that it’s more than just a woman sitting there with a baby inside them. It’s a holistic approach to caring for the entire family that’s needed. We’re able to do that in our appointments.”
The new healthcare clinic, located on Shaker Boulevard, sits in the shadow of the former St. Luke’s Hospital, which served the city’s East Side neighborhoods until it closed in 1999.
Village of Healing’s Buckeye-Shaker clinic will be a boon to the community, said Timothy Tramble, CEO of Saint Luke’s Foundation, a philanthropic organization centered on health equity and created by the hospital’s dissolution.
“We all know that there are health disparities among African-American women, and understanding that this is a low-income African-American community, it makes sense to have a culturally competent, and culturally conscious medical center that specializes in maternal and infant mortality,” Tramble said.
“I’m expecting (Village of Healing) to thrive,” Tramble continued. “We know that they’re highly competent and highly capable. In a relatively short amount of time, they have done very meaningful work.”
A quote attributed to Harriet Tubman is painted on a lobby wall at Village of Healing’s second clinic, this one located in Cleveland’s Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood.Julie E. Washington, cleveland.com
Village expands to Buckeye-Shaker
Village of Healing’s fast growth necessitated a second location.
“There’s a need,” Langford said. “People were coming out for the first time to get annual exams that hadn’t had one in 20 years. They were finally walking into a space where people were listening to them.”
A high percentage of the nonprofit’s patients who came to the Euclid office actually lived near the Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood, so that area was the logical choice for a second clinic.
While about 80% of Village of Healing patients are Black, a sizeable number are white, Langford said. White patients often say they were made to feel comfortable and received excellent care, she said.
Another community-based nonprofit focused on Black maternal and infant health, Birthing Beautiful Communities, also is on the move. Birthing Beautiful Communities plans to break ground in April for its new headquarters and birth center, a three-floor facility at E. 65th Street and Chester Avenue that will provide a full spectrum of gynecological care.
The Birthing Beautiful Communities headquarters is slated to open in late 2026.
Village of Healing’s expanded services — including primary, pediatric services and mental health care — grew from listening to what patients needed. People struggling to keep their diabetes under control pointed to a need for primary physicians, Langford said. When patients cried during check-ups due to stress, and said they wanted help with anxiety and depression, the nonprofit hired two mental health staff members.
“There was just a lot of healing that needed to happen,” she said.
Its pediatric postpartum program offers joint postpartum appointments for moms and babies for the first year of life. In many health settings, moms and infants have separate doctor appointments.
“It is a way for us to be preventative and not reactive with maternal mortality,” Langford said. “We’re able to constantly assess mom because they come to the newborn appointments.”
The pediatric postpartum program is central to Village of Healing’s mission to lower the high infant mortality rates in Cuyahoga County.
Cuyahoga County’s infant mortality rate of 8.82 per 1,000 live births in 2023 is the highest in the last five years and second-highest in the last decade, according to the 2023 Cuyahoga County Board of Health Child Fatality Report.
That 8.8 rate was higher than the infant mortality rate in Ohio (7.1) or the nation as a whole (5.6) in 2023, according to the report.
Black infants died from prematurity at a rate 3.7 times higher than white babies in 2023, according to the county report.
Langford, along with other healthcare and community leaders working to prevent infant deaths in the region, is frustrated by the lack of progress.
“We’re continuing to look for Band-Aids,” she said. “We’re not investing in what we know works. We know what works is that when your provider looks like you, your disparities decrease, your outcomes are better and your satisfaction with your care is better.”
Langford’s work recently earned her a seat on a federal advisory committee on infant and maternal mortality.
“My job now is to affect more than one person a day,” said Langford, who is a certified nurse midwife. “It’s to truly affect policy health care, and change the way that people think about health care, especially for the black community.”
Youngstown’s ‘babies deserve to live’
Economically depressed Mahoning County on Ohio’s eastern border has one of the highest infant mortality rates in Ohio. In Youngstown, the county seat, Black infant mortality is much higher than white infant mortality.
For Youngstown health commissioner Erin Bishop, that’s unacceptable. That’s why she and the city of Youngstown invited Village of Healing to open a Youngstown branch later this year.
The Youngstown clinic will share a renovated former grocery store with other community organizations, Bishop said.
She’s confident that Village of Healing’s celebratory clap-outs for pregnant women who carry to term will help make the difference in Youngstown’s disadvantaged communities.
“I remember how exciting it was planning my sons’ first birthdays, and there are people that don’t get to celebrate their children’s first birthday,” she said. “I think Village of Healing is going to be the answer that we’ve all been searching for.”
Julie Washington covers healthcare for cleveland.com. Read previous stories at this link.
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