NEW ORLEANS—Nikki Greenaway, a family nurse practitioner in New Orleans and international board-certified lactation consultant, provides nontraditional maternity care and support to Black mothers through her community-based practice, Bloom Maternal Health.
Greenaway’s work was recently featured on SHIFT Talk, a nationwide podcast supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropy devoted solely to health. Greenaway’s episode, titled “Medical MacGyver,” focuses on Black maternal health disparities and discusses how nurses can have a more holistic understanding of their patients’ health.
“We go to safe houses and homeless shelters,” Greenaway says. “We go to places that most people don’t want to go. We have our backpacks, and we go in there and give them care.”
Greenaway says Black women in Louisiana are four times more likely to experience a serious complication or die during childbirth than White women, and less likely to receive the medical care they need. Experts say these differences stem in part from inequities in access to healthcare in the state. Nikki Greenaway, a family nurse practitioner based in New Orleans, wants to eliminate these barriers by providing maternity care and support to Black mothers.
“My patient population is really unique, and it has some needs that other populations may not have,” Greenaway says. “Too often, they’re overlooked or dismissed.”
Greenaway partners with organizations such as Healthy Start and other social service organizations to provide care that is free of charge to her patients and works with other non-profits to obtain grants and funding for resources.
More podcasts and other resources for nurses related to these issues can be found at SHIFT Nursing.
