Meet the Midwives

Chloë Lubell CNM and Jenna Hutchens CNM are the two midwives that make up Cosmos Midwifery in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, offering at-home reproductive care for people of all genders, backgrounds, ages, and income levels. That includes homebirth midwifery care, Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), fertility support, GYN care, and gender affirming hormone therapy. Their priority is to bring you care that recognizes you as an individual and values your own knowledge of yourself & your body through true informed consent, communication, and gentle touch.

Meet Chloë Lubell CNM (she/her) 

On paper, I became a Certified Nurse Midwife at the Yale School of Nursing in 2014, but in reality it was in many different ways in many different times in my life.  It might have been when I received dismissive, disrespectful, and painful GYN care when I was a teenager, or when I saw the same things happening to my friends in the most vulnerable moments in their lives.  It might have been when I first witnessed a birth as a doula and knew it could have gone better.  It might have been when I experienced my own unplanned pregnancy and subsequent abortion, but it could have also just been a part of how I have interacted with the world my whole life.  Midwifery is how I make the world better, how I live within a system and country entrenched in sexism, racism, classism, and hatred, and still remain grounded in the goodness of humanity.

I live in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. After I graduated from midwifery school, I worked in a public hospital service at Bellevue Hospital until 2017, when I joined Central Park Midwifery, a private practice that supports births at Mount Sinai West. I married Antone, my high school sweetheart, in 2013, and after raising two cats and a dog we decided to grow our family even further.  Io Aurora was born in July of 2019 at home under water on the hottest day of the year and the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing.  Shortly after, Cosmos Midwifery was born as a way to expand birthing options for pregnant people in New York City and offer them the same experience I had the blessing to receive. Since then our family has grown again with Anaïs Oleander, born July of 2022 at home on the dining room rug.

Meet Jenna Hutchens (she/her)

Jenna has been passionate about reproductive health for as long as she can remember. She has been involved in several grassroots collectives that focused on reproductive rights, self-care and education. After the birth of her daughter at home she had a private postpartum and labor doula practice for 13 years, and eventually decided to pursue nurse midwifery. After earning her nursing degree in 2007, she honed her clinical skills during 5 years as an ER nurse at Beth Israel Hospital in New York City. During this period, she became certified as a SAFE examiner, providing care and guiding sexual assault victims through the emotionally challenging evidence collection process. 

Before embarking on her midwifery education, Jenna worked for over a year as an assistant to a homebirth midwife, where she gained practical experience in a model of care that was close to her heart. She began her studies at Frontier Nursing University in 2013 where she completed her masters degree and attained dual certification as a family nurse practitioner and a midwife.

In 2018 Jenna joined Connecticut Childbirth and Women’s Center as a staff midwife; the Center’s midwives attended pregnant people in a freestanding birth center and in the hospital, a fruitful situation to develop skill at co-managing complex situations. Her family nurse practitioner certification allows her to provide holistic care to people at all stages of life. 

In 2021, Jenna felt pulled to come back to live full-time in her East Village home. She is so excited to join Cosmos Midwifery to offer her skills and compassion in support of families who have chosen to give birth at home.

Cosmos Midwifery’s Team:

Zahra Yavari, Birth Assistant

Zahra has a master’s degree in midwifery, and she is working towards being a Certified Midwife in the US. She has experience of performing as a Certified Midwife in over five hundred births and hundreds as an assistant midwife in Iran. Zahra speaks Farsi & English.

Alessandra de Almeida, Birth Assistant and Lactation Consultant

Alessandra is a certified doula, lactation counselor and homebirth assist. She has worked in the New York homebirth community for over 10 years. She had both her children at home, and sees homebirth as a safe and incredibly supportive environment for birthing people and families. She is excited to be on the Cosmos Midwifery team, and honored to hold space and support families on their birth and postpartum lactation journey. Alessandra is fluent Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and English, and lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two kids cat and dog.

Leah Bealand, Birth Assistant and Student Midwife

Leah is a student midwife pursuing her CPM license from the North American Registry of Midwives. Leah is a Birth and Postpartum Doula, Certified Lactation Counselor, and Home Birth Assistant with over five years of experience supporting families in NYC. Birth work has been a growing calling in Leah's heart since she first witnessed it 15 years ago. That path has led her to serving families from many different cultures and backgrounds with a range of approaches in multiple settings. She has a deep respect for the physiological birth process as it engages the heart and spirit of a person, and she centers her care on the whole emerging family.

Briani Matlock, Postpartum Doula

Briani is a certified birth and postpartum doula from Brooklyn, a certified lactation counselor and placenta encapsulator. She is the proud owner of Shepherding Lions Doula Services LLC. She has her Masters in Maternal Child Health Systems from Bastyr University. Briani has been supporting families for almost six years and is humbled by every opportunity that she is given to do so. She loves to talk about birth options and preparing for the postpartum period. When she is not doulaing you can find her either cooking, eating, or singing.