Cheryllee Bourgeois, R.M., is a Métis midwife and educator.

Early life

Bourgeois was raised in

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

but her traditional territory is in the

Red River colony The Red River Colony (or Selkirk Settlement), also known as Assiniboia, Assinboia, was a colonization project set up in 1811 by Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, on of land in British North America. This land was granted to Douglas by the Hud ...

in southern Manitoba and the

Missouri River Basin The Missouri River Valley outlines the journey of the Missouri River from its headwaters where the Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin Rivers flow together in Montana to its confluence with the Mississippi River in the State of Missouri. At long th ...

in North Dakota.

Education and practice

Bourgeios graduated from Ryerson University's Midwifery program in 2007. She practiced for over 11 years before returning to teach as a sessional instructor in the midwifery program at Ryerson University from 2008. In 2019 she joined the program as a faculty member. In 2002, she co-founded, along with Sara Wolfe and Ellen Blais, Seventh Generation Midwives Toronto. She is currently the President of the Toronto Birth Centre. She is an advocate for culturally safe care in pregnancy for Indigenous women.

Advocacy

Bourgeois has critiqued the Canadian federal government evacuation policy which requires pregnant Indigenous women from some communities to travel to cities in order to deliver their babies. She has also highlighted the harm done by practitioners who appropriate best practices from Indigenous midwifery without proper attribution.

Select bibliography

* Daoud, N., Kristen O’Brien, Patricia O’Campo, Harney, S., Harney, E., Bebee, K., Bourgeios, Cheryllee, Smylie, J. (2019). "Postpartum depression prevalence and risk factors among indigenous, non-indigenous and immigrant women in Canada." ''Canadian Journal of Public Health, 110''(4), 440–452. *Dion Fletcher, Claire and Cheryllee Bourgeios, "Refusing Delinquency, Reclaiming Power: Indigenous Women and Childbirth." ''Natal Signs: cultural representations of pregnancy, birth and parenting''. ed. Nadya Burton. Bradford, Ontario: Demeter Press, 2015. * Monchalin, R., Smylie, J., Bourgeois, C., & Firestone, M. (2019). “I would prefer to have my health care provided over a cup of tea any day”: recommendations by urban Métis women to improve access to health and social services in Toronto for the Métis community. ''AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples,'' 15:3, 217-225''.'' * Kitching, G.T., Firestone, M., Schei, B. et al. (2019). "Unmet health needs and discrimination by healthcare providers among an Indigenous population in Toronto, Canada," ''Canadian Journal of Public Health,'' 111, 40–49. * Rotondi MA, O’Campo P, O’Brien K, et al., (2017) "Our Health Counts Toronto: using respondent-driven sampling to unmask census undercounts of an urban indigenous population in Toronto, Canada," ''BMJ Open'', 7:12, e018936. * Bourgeois, Cheryllee, Copee, Annabel and Hilary Edelstein, ''Paramedic PESP emergency skills : managing birth out-of-hospital'', Toronto: Ontario Association of Midwives, 2017.

References

External links

Deposition by Cheryllee Bourgeois
at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues {{DEFAULTSORT:Bourgeios, Cheryllee Canadian Métis people Canadian midwives Living people Year of birth missing (living people)