Meet the BHBMATX Team:

THE MIDWIVES behind Black Home Birth Matters ATX:

Ulrike Schmidt, CPM, LM, has been a holistic home birth midwife in Austin for 5 years.

She identifies as BIPOC, and is the daughter to Black and European parents who also happen to be physicians.

Growing up, stories of racism––overt, institutional, systemic, medical, etc, as experienced by family members or Black folks on a whole––were commonplace. This lit a fire in her belly for civil and human rights, and once a midwife, the health disparities that affect Black women and mothers became glaring.

Hoping to elicit change, she started BHBMATX in 2020. It is her hope to help make home birth accessible to any Black Austin area woman who desires it.

Ulrike lives on 25 acres in Bastrop, with her three daughters and husband.

Leena Pacak, CPM, LM, is a homebirth midwife in Austin. She identifies as an Indian immigrant woman who came to the United States at the age of 9 with her family.

Leena is on a lifelong journey of accepting and integrating her Indian heritage. Being an immigrant was a painful and challenging experience for her in many ways, although she is now proud of this part of her identity and values the resiliency, complexity and strength of the immigrant community.

Leena understands the impact of community and healthcare providers who share our experiences as women of color. Lessening health disparities among women of color is an integral part of her work as a midwife. In 2020 when her close friend and sister midwife, Ulrike Schmidt, hatched the idea to start BHBMATX, she joined the mission with an enthusiastic "YES"!

She lives in East Austin with her husband and two daughters, both of whom were born in the privacy and safety of her home.