The Guardian | With Woman | Guardian Documentaries @theGuardian | Uploaded September 2023 | Updated October 2024, 1 week ago.
Star is a Black midwife who helps Black women give birth in the comfort of their homes, in the state of Illinois. She is part of a long-established African-American tradition of home-birth midwifery, which is currently in a legal gray area across a number of US states, with midwives unable to obtain a license to practice. Despite this legal peril, and motivated by the high maternal mortality rate for Black women (which is nearly three times that of white women), Star continues in her role.