Rachel Zaslow

Midwife and Executive Director

Mother Health International

Rachel Zaslow

Rachel Zaslow is a midwife and Executive Director of Mother Health International, a non profit that works to reduce perinatal mortality rates through the education of midwives and the creation of sustainable birth centers in areas where the burden of mortality is highest. Rachel has worked with midwives and mothers in Uganda, Haiti, Senegal, Guinea, New York City ad Virginia. She helped to start The Sisters Keeper Collective, a women of color led initiative to address the disparities in birth outcomes for black mothers and babies. Additionally, Rachel holds a PhD in Feminist Theory, a Masters in Performance Studies and teaches courses about Women’s Health, War and Trauma, Gender and Development, as well as the intersections between Narrative and Medicine. Prior to MHI, Rachel co-founded Earth Birth: International Women’s Health Collective to promote local practice, to facilitate the sharing of skills across cultures, and to protect the role of the traditional midwife. Rachel states, “my role as a visionary leader is to join hands with my team. I draw on feminist discourse to dismantle power structures and think strategically. So for any project, we start with: What is the issue, what are the root causes, what are our strengths and from that place, how do we address them.”