Emilee Saldaya and Yolande Norris-Clark, influential figures in the freebirth movement, have attracted significant attention for their controversial practices and teachings. In 2024, they opened the MatriBirth Midwifery Institute (MMI). This new, fully online midwifery school provides a community-based, low-residency, year-long intensive program for $12,000. After years of developing this extremely profitable collaboration, they fronted this new initiative. It further entrenched their power over the freebirth movement, which promotes giving birth outside of any sort of medical care.
By 2021, Saldaya’s renown in the freebirth world was at its apex. She convened the first Matriarch Rising festival on her gorgeous 53-acre homestead in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. The one-of-a-kind event attracted a rabidly enthusiastic female-only audience. The festival symbolized her commitment to empowering women in childbirth outside traditional medical settings. By this time, Saldaya had already started to establish the foundation for MMI and met Norris-Clark in 2013. Both of them had, as mothers, freebirthing their own children, and this served to create a strong collaboration.
The Radical Birth Keeper (RBK) school, which opened in 2020, sold out immediately, even with a $6,000 tuition. This success was a testament to the increasing demand for alternative birthing practices. By 2024, the Freebirth Society (FBS) was bringing in some impressive revenue. According to a recent Medium post by a former employee, they were approaching $160,000 per month.
That success has come at a cost. Not surprisingly, reports have emerged of life-altering complications and even deaths of participants. Amalia Hernandez nearly bled to death in March 2024 after refusing to call for medical assistance, believing her postpartum bleeding would resolve itself. On top of that, Adair Arbor welcomed her daughter Ilex into the world as a stillbirth in January 2021 following a historic 115-hour labor.
Within several weeks of MMI’s launch, 13 students had dropped out or been kicked out of the program. Keelee Sullivan had taken out $6,000 in loans to attend the RBK school. She felt that this investment would ensure her success as a future community based midwife. Countless students share that they do not feel prepared for the on-the-ground realities of a non-medicated birth.
To avoid the legal challenges, Saldaya and Norris-Clark have since pivoted their focus towards training “birth mentors,” moving away from traditional midwifery roles. MMI has been renamed the MatriBirth Mentor Institute, marking a new change in their educational direction.
Most alarmingly, Saldaya has previously stated that she would not support newborns resuscitation practices if needed, even in dire emergencies.
“Like, for example, I would never resuscitate a baby. That’s cuckoo bananas to me.” – Emilee Saldaya
Despite these controversies, the community’s former members have been increasingly vocal in their opposition. One former Lighthouse member, whose child was stillborn in 2024, described a dark pattern among the tribe.
“There’s this cycle,” – one ex-Lighthouse member
In this, they identified the unique emotional toll of losing leaders deeply embedded in the movement to advance racial justice.
“Children die. It’s known in the community for a time, then new members come into the Lighthouse, and they’re forgotten. It’s like the erasure of our children.” – one ex-Lighthouse member
Norris-Clark has been blunt in her criticism about how society views death.
“This idea of death being bad is not really something I believe is true,” – Yolande Norris-Clark