Nicola Pemberton, MD, is a board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist who is the medical director of The Birth Center of New Jersey in Union, New Jersey. She has been featured on a Netflix documentary about childbirth, and in the metropolitian section of The New York Times. She is a champion for Women’s Health, helping women who strive for a minimally invasive delivery. She works tirelessly to help lower New Jersey’s maternal mortality rate and eliminating racial disparities in birth outcomes everyday. She has delivered hundreds of babies during this pandemic, and she is definitely considered one of our local heroines in health care in Essex and Union county.

Dr. Pemberton completed her undergraduate degree in biology at the University of Miami in Florida before moving to the West Indies for two years to attend the St. George’s University School of Medicine in True Blue, Grenada. For her third year of medical school, she did her clinical rotations in England, including neuroscience selective in the Czech Republic.

She completed her obstetrics and gynecology residency at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in New Jersey, where she was recognized for her resident teaching and given a faculty position at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York City, where she also served as a clinical assistant professor at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University.

Dr. Pemberton is board-certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Her training includes general laparoscopic and robotic gynecology surgery for procedures such as myomectomy, hysterectomy, and ovarian pathology. She performs numerous in-office procedures, including endometrial ablation, cryosurgery, colposcopy, and cone biopsies.

Dr. Pemberton lives in the Union County with her husband and three children.

Kasey has been dedicated to supporting pregnancy and birth since 2004. She began as a childbirth educator but soon realized that her heart was in midwifery. She initially became credentialed as a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) to build a strong foundation in normal, physiologic birth. She built a practice that balanced knowledge, skill, and service. She attended hundreds of community births before pivoting to nurse midwifery.

As a CNM she is passionate about extending her philosophy of holistic care to well-person, gynecology and contraception. She received her RN from Warren County Community College and her Master of Science in Nurse Midwifery from Frontier Nursing University. Prior to discovering midwifery, she received a BA from Rutgers University and worked in mortgage finance. She has been with her husband, Adam, since high school and has 3 children, all of whom were born with the help of a midwife.

Chidera Chima is a certified nurse midwife and board-certified women’s health nurse practitioner. She is very passionate about caring for women throughout their lifespan, providing respectful maternity care, and advancing birth equity. She prides herself on being an advocate and voice for women of color as she believes all women are entitled to safe, compassionate, and equal access to quality maternity care.

Before finding her way to midwifery, Chidera obtained her undergraduate degree in Sports Medicine with a concentration in Chemistry at Howard University in Washington, DC. Her love for all things midwifery and women’s health began after a life-changing mission trip to Ghana, West Africa in college. Although the trip was meant to bless and help others, Chidera also gained a sense of self and purpose.

Chidera received her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree in Midwifery and Women’s Health from Rutgers University. Before completing her midwifery education, she worked as a Cardiothoracic Surgery RN and Labor & Delivery RN after receiving her Master of science in nursing from Johns Hopkins University. She also has prior experience supporting birthing moms as a certified doula while in nursing school.

Born and raised a Jersey girl, in her spare time she enjoys spending quality time with family and friends, visiting art museums, watching documentaries, and traveling the world with her favorite travel buddy, her twin sister.

Jess Couper, MSN, CNM received her Master of Science in Nurse Midwifery from Frontier Nursing University in Hyden, KY, and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from William Paterson University in Wayne, NJ. She completed her clinical training for midwifery in NY and NJ, in various home and hospital birth settings. Jess has a passion for natural birth, and for helping women to feel empowered and autonomous in their pregnancies, births, and beyond.

During her nursing program, she created and implemented original research and ultimately evaluated over 3,000 participant responses in order to complete this project. Her research focused on the relationship between interpersonal processes of care as exhibited by the primary care provider and the level of maternal satisfaction with the birthing experience. She was grateful to be able to present her research findings across the country during multiple research conferences. Her abstract is published in Nursing Research. Jess would like to continue to add to the growing body of midwifery related research in the future.

Jess has been married for over 13 years to her loving husband, Tim, and is the proud mom of their adorable golden doodle, Ellie, and their human rainbow baby, Juniper Snow. In her spare time you can find her hiking all over NJ, quilting, crafting, gardening, making brooms and herbal products, and spending quality time with her family.

Edine is a Certified Midwife (CM) and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). The birth trauma of having her first daughter in 2014 led her to the birthing world. Despite having a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Administration, in 2016, she made a drastic career change to become a certified full spectrum doula at Ancient Song Doula Services, where she provided free services for birthing persons in need.

The passion for the newfound journey led her to midwifery school after a preceptorship with a hospital and homebirth midwife. Since then she has graduated from SUNY Downstate and is licensed midwife in the state of New York and New Jersey. Throughout the years as a doula and now as a midwife, her focus is on reproductive justice work and birth equity for people of color, as this is always a topic of discussion in her community work. In 2018, as a second year midwifery student, she had the chance to experience a home birth with her second daughter. She has also volunteered to teach children and young adults of color about midwifery in public and private school settings.

Edine has been married for 14 years and has two lovely daughters. She breastfed both of her children past 3 ½ years of age so she is very knowledgeable about breastfeeding, which holds a place dear to her heart.