Small Things Grow Midwifery

Robina (she/her/hers) has been attending births for over a decade and has served as primary midwife for more than 500 births. She grew up with her feet on two continents, reading books on Brooklyn stoops and running through rainstorms on Lahore rooftops. Her experiences as a working class, biracial child in the United States and in Pakistan awoke in her a deep curiosity about race, gender, and class, and the intersections between them. That curiosity initially led her to complete a PhD in English with a focus on race and gender in early America at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her experiences as a doctoral student and professor influenced her calling to midwifery, which was both spiritual and political: she believes that pregnancy and birth are sacred experiences that exist in a world often hostile to those doing the birthing, and she wanted to work to change that. She received her Masters of Midwifery at SUNY Downstate, where she was awarded the program’s top honors for both clinical achievement and research. From there, she began working in a high volume public hospital, advocating for the rights of some of the most vulnerable people in our city to be educated and make decisions about their health while attending the safe and loving births of their babies. She founded her homebirth practice, Small Things Grow Midwifery, in 2017. She has cared for people diverse in race, ethnic background, socio-economic status, family structure, sexuality, and gender expression, and has learned from each and every person she has cared for.