CARE Power Panel Presented by UPS

Dr. Ericka Gibson

Physician Program Director for Perinatal Safety and Quality, Permanente Medicine

A native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Ericka C. Gibson graduated from Spelman College with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish. She attended the University of Pennsylvania for medical school, and also completed a master’s in public health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as a Sommer Scholar with a focus on health policy and reproductive health. Dr. Gibson completed her OB-GYN residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in 2012. She joined a private practice in Washington, DC and then joined TSPMG in 2016. She served as the Associate Chief of Women’s Services from 2020-2021 and then transitioned to the Physician Program Director for Perinatal Safety and Quality in 2021.

Kimberly Durdin, LM

Executive Director, Birthing People Foundation

Kimberly Durdin is a Licensed Midwife, Certified Professional Midwife, Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant(retired), Entrepreneur Speaker, Educator & Doula Trainer. As a mother of six and grandmother of five, Kimberly credits her children (and grandchildren) as her greatest teachers.

Over the last 33 years, Kimberly has interwoven her life with the lives of thousands of families throughout New York City, Washington DC Metro Area & Los Angeles. Be it through her work of providing lactation care, postpartum support, groups, counseling, childbirth education, labor support or through her work mentoring current and future birthworkers, her dedication has allowed her to fully enjoy the fruits of her labor in the faces of the communities served. She and business partner Allegra Hill are co-owners and co-founders of Kindred Space LA, Los Angeles’s only Black-owned Birth Center and hub for midwifery care, out of hospital birth, doula support and training, lactation consulting, education, parenting support groups, enrichment, movement & more. KindredSpaceLA is preparing to open additional locations in the Southern California region. The need is great as more communities nationwide are facing a lack of maternal healthcare options, commonly known as “maternity care deserts.”

Her non-profit the Birthing People Foundation empowers People of Color by providing free and low cost education, training and certification pertaining to pregnancy, birth and postpartum; such as doulas, childbirth educators, lactation consultants, birth assistants and midwives. It is designed to address the maternal and infant health disparities in communities of color and other marginalized groups and to help change birth outcomes for marginalized people, while bringing Black and Brown women/people back to their roots as indigenous wellness providers.

Dr. Natalie Hernandez

Executive Director, Center for Maternal Health Equity at Morehouse School of Medicine

Dr. Hernandez-Green is an Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Founding and Executive Director of the Center for Maternal Health Equity at Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM). She received her Master of Public Health from Emory University and her PhD in public health from the University of South Florida. Dr. Hernandez-Green’s more than 17 years of research experiences and contributions to science have been dedicated to rigorous methodology using community engagement approaches to advance health equity through research and practice. Her research focuses on advancing science toward the elimination of women’s health inequities taking a multi-sectoral and multi-level translational research approach. Additionally, her research explores the integration of technology to advance women’s health and provides easy access to women’s health care. Dr. Hernandez-Green is a NIH R01 funded researcher who has obtained diverse extramural funding to develop multiple lines of research, including the inaugural NIH Maternal Health Research Centers of Excellence. She has laid the groundwork for research in maternal health by establishing partnerships with local and national organizations dedicated to maternal morbidity and mortality disparities, evaluating maternal health interventions and programs, and validating effective measures of maternal mental health, medical mistrust, and psychosocial factors. She has received several awards and sits on local and national maternal health organizations including but not limited to Georgia’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee, Georgia PRAMS Steering Committee and Maternal Health Work Group of NAESM. Dr. Hernandez has presented her work at various international, national, state and local conferences.

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