Okunsola M. Amadou

Brittany L. Conteh, professionally known as Okunsola M. Amadou, is the Founder & CEO of Jamaa Birth Village, which was founded in 2015, in Ferguson, MO. Now Okunsola is a 23x time award winning Black Maternal Health pioneer, recognized in Missouri as the First Black Certified Professional Midwife and First Black Registered Preceptor through the North American Registry of Midwives. 

On Juneteenth of 2020, Okunsola opened Missouri's First Black led Midwifery clinic. She is currently leading an initiative and capital campaign to build Missouri's First Black led birth center and postpartum retreat haven.

Okunsola’s leadership grew the St. Louis Black Doula community from less than 10 Black practicing doulas in 2015 to certifying 460+ doulas in 8-years through her Community Doula Training as St. Louis’ First Black written, created & taught community-based doula training. Okunsola leads the STL 360 Doula Initiative through the international maternal child health organization Merck for Mothers, which will identify St. Louis as a designated Safer Childbirth City in 2024 thanks to the work of Jamaa Birth Village. 

Okunsola is the recipient of 10 Black Maternal Health state and local proclamations, including 1-Congressional and 2-state Resolution for her work in the field of Midwifery & Doula care. Okunsola currently sits on numerous local, state, national and global Black Maternal Health task forces, boards, and committees. She is the founder of the global initiative of "Black Doula Day™" and is a kindred partner with Black Mamas Matter Alliance. 

Okunsola currently practices as a Global Midwife-providing Black Maternal Health consultation services for US based hospitals to improve equitable policies, state legislators to create bills that protect and advance community birth work, and international NGOs in creating their own birthing villages removing colonialism from community birthing practices.

As the first Black Certified Professional Midwife in Missouri, Okunsola's legacy includes being a 2-time teen mom at the ages of 14 & 18 and saving herself from hospital harm and mistreatment by leaving the public health system after two unnecessary c-sections. In 2012, she took her power into her own hands and hired a home birth Midwife for a very empowering VBA2C, in which she gave birth to a healthy baby boy, surrounded by her family, Midwives & Doula, under a beautiful full moon shining through her bedroom window. In 2013, she lived in Ghana, West Africa, and took up studying with traditional priestesses and village Midwives. While singing and praying by the sea where she lived in Elmina, Ghana, she received a very vivid vision of creating a birth village. With that vision in tow, she returned back to America and founded Jamaa Birth Village in 2015

While her achievements are vast, she's honored for creating Missouri's first Black Midwifery clinic, creating the states first wrap-around holistic Midwifery & Doula care model, writing the nations first home birth book written by a Black woman for Black women, titled, "A Black Woman's Guide to Home Birth''. Okunsola has received 10+ awards in 4-years noting the 2018 Dr. Corinne Walentik Leadership in Health Award through Missouri Foundation for Health and the 2022 Frankie Freeman Inspiration Award through the Saint Louis County Library Black History Committee.

Okunsola is known as the Queen Mother of the Black Maternal Health Movement in St. Louis and an inspiration to many. She has been featured on The Today Show, ABC's More in Common show, the Washington Post, NPR, National Geographic, the FOX news channel, on the cover of the Riverfront Times, and several more publications during her career as a trailblazing Doula & Midwife. She holds certifications as a Midwife, Doula, Breastfeeding Counselor, Reiki Master Healer & Teacher, Yoga Teacher 200hr, Aromatherapist, Herbalist, CPR instructor, Childbirth Educator and Sexual & Reproductive Health provider.

She's married to her life long love Musah. She is a mother to 3 brilliant and handsome sons, Kylan, Kashawn and Kaleo. She commutes between her home state of Texas and her home in Ferguson, MO, continuing her great work nationwide. In her individual time she loves to read and write poetry by candlelight while listening to vinyls spin tunes from musical genres. She vows to continue paving the way for positive birth experiences for Black women and families in the St. Louis region.