Building Beautiful Babies™ grew out of a shared commitment to address the real conditions shaping maternal health. The work centers on reducing stress, expanding access to trusted guidance, and delivering education in ways that feel culturally resonant and usable in everyday life.

This initiative was intentionally built as a collaboration, bringing together complementary expertise to meet both the emotional and practical realities of pregnancy and postpartum.

Birthing the Magic Collaborative (BTM), founded by Marie Boone Clark and her partners, curates high quality maternal health education that is easier to access, easier to trust, and easier to use. Through its virtual learning community and expert led programming, BTM produces evidence based microlessons with nationally recognized clinicians, researchers, and advocates. In free virtual workshops, BTM translates complex health information into culturally grounded tools, including clear scripts for care visits, concrete next steps, and resource pathways that support families through pregnancy, postpartum, and the first year.

Dr. Angela Neal Barnett, a nationally recognized psychologist and leading authority on stress and anxiety among Black women, has spent decades advancing research on a key driver of maternal outcomes that is too often minimized: chronic stress and emotional load. Her work clarifies how sustained stress, especially in environments where people do not feel emotionally safe or believed, can shape health across pregnancy and postpartum. Her research also demonstrates that culturally responsive, structured group interventions can reduce that burden, strengthen coping, and restore emotional safety. In doing so, she has helped position emotional well being as an essential pillar of maternal health.

Their work addressed different, but deeply connected, parts of the same challenge. BTM builds preparation, clarity, and practical action. Dr. Neal Barnett’s work builds emotional grounding, stress reduction, and psychological safety. Together, these strengths form a more complete response.

Building Beautiful Babies™ integrates these approaches into one cohesive model that pairs evidence based emotional support with accessible virtual education across pregnancy, postpartum, and the first year. Families are supported to feel steadier, more informed, and better prepared to recognize early warning signs, communicate confidently with care teams, and navigate systems that can feel overwhelming.

At its core, Building Beautiful Babies™ reflects a shared belief: maternal health improves when emotional well being and trusted education are treated as essential. The goal is simple and urgent. Families feel supported, concerns are raised earlier, and care is experienced with greater confidence, clarity, and dignity.