Damara Jenkins , MSN, CNM

Damara Jenkins, MSN, CNM is a Certified Nurse Midwife who practiced at the University of Louisville Health. When she began her role there, she became the first CNM to practice in a Louisville hospital. During her time in Kentucky, she practiced at several sites in the region including Bardstown, Madisonville, and Jeffersonville, IN. In her career, she has often found herself to be the only Black or Brown person in the room, including for some time the only Black midwife in the state much less Louisville. While pregnancy and childbirth care is her primary practice, she provides care to women across their entire lifespan, partnering with them to enable them to live their healthiest life. Jenkins received her undergraduate degrees from the University of Louisville in 1999 and Bellarmine University in 2000 and received her MSN degree from Frontier Nursing University in 2009. She has served as an officer of the Kentucky Affiliate of the American College of Nurse-Midwives and received the Frontier Nursing University 75th Anniversary Pioneer Award in 2014. She is on the board of the Louisville Coalition of Black Maternal Health and a member of the Kentucky Coalition of Nurse Practitioners and Nurse Midwives. Additionally, she serves Kentuckians by participating as a Nurse Midwife member of the Maternal Mortality Review Committee for the state Department of Public Health.