ECCS Touchpoints Webinar: Cultural Birthing Practices as a Protective Factor
What is a touchpoint?
A child’s brain undergoes rapid development during the first three years of life, making this period crucial for their overall growth. Each new brain connection formed during this time has been referred to as a “touchpoint,” which is why we named our informational webinar series after this important milestone in a child’s development. Through these hour-long, interactive webinars, our goal is to help you create your own touchpoints across South Dakota, contributing to the healthy development of all the state’s children.
Cultural Birthing Practices as a Protective Factor
Speaker: Camie Goldhammer, LISCW, IBCLC, Full Spectrum Indigenous Doula and Founding Executive Director, Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services
CEUs: SD Board of Social Work Examiners This organization (University of South Dakota – Provider #1048) is approved as a provider for continuing education by the South Dakota Board of Social Work Examiners. Social workers will receive up to 1.0 Continuing Education clock hours for participating in this course.
Camie Goldhammer, MSW, LICSW,IBCLC (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyaté) is a devoted leader for Indigenous families locally and nationally. She brings joy into all the work that she does and creates community and care in all her relationships. From starting grassroots community milk donation drives for families in her neighborhood, to holding lactation support circles in her living room, and bringing strangers random acts of kindness for her birthday, Camie is generous, warm-hearted, and a treasure to those who know her.
Camie is the first in several generations to reclaim the traditional practice of breastfeeding. She is held by the love of her ancestors and the support of her community in pursuing a vision of increasing breast/chest feeding and decreasing maternal and infant mortality in Native and Pacific Islander communities nationally. She, along with her “breastfriend” Kimberly Moore-Salas (Diné) created the first and only lactation counselor training created by Native people for Native communities and addresses the role that Historical Trauma (HT) and colonization have played in interrupting this traditional practice. Camie and Kim have trained over 550 Indigenous Lactation Counselors or Indigi-LCs across Turtle Island. In November 2018 Camie along with Kimberly were the first Native Americans to be elected to the United States Breastfeeding Committee Board of Directors. Both were reelected for a second term in the fall of 2020.
Camie has spent nearly 20 years serving urban Native families. She started the Native American Breastfeeding Coalition of Washington, the National Association of Professional and Peer Lactation Consultants of Color and was a member of the Center for Social Inclusion’s First Food Racial Equity cohort. In 2013 she became Washington state’s first Native American Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant. She worked as a Campaign Director with Moms Rising working to bring paid family and medical leave to Washington State which was signed into law in July 2017. Starting in 2014, Camie worked with CHAMPS/CHEER to make all hospitals in Mississippi and the Indian Health Service Baby Friendly. In April 2021 she left her role as Program Manager for United Indians of All Tribes’ Daybreak Star Doulas (which she also developed) and Our Strong Fathers to start Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services as its Founding Executive Director. She is a national leader on topics of racial equity, birth and breastfeeding reclamation and first food justice.
When she isn’t working tirelessly for her communities, you can find Camie spending time with her family, listening to podcasts on cults, or at Disneyland. She lives in South Seattle with her husband Eric, two daughters Dylan (15) and JoJo (12), and dog Memphis. She has an amazing earring and breastfeeding t-shirt collection. Every year for breastfeeding awareness month, she wears a different t-shirt every day and posts a new fact about milk and breast/chest feeding. Taught by her Unči(Grandma), Camie has a love of sewing, especially quilting. She makes Halloween costumes for her daughters every year from scratch, and traditional star quilts for community members. She carries on the legacy of her grandmother through these practices.
