President
Missi Burgess, CPM, is the founder of the NACPM Georgia Chapter and a home birth midwife with more than a decade of practice serving families across Georgia. She brings firsthand experience of what midwifery care means to the families and communities who depend on it — and that experience drives every dimension of her advocacy.
Under her leadership, NACPM GA has become an active voice in Georgia's maternal health landscape. Missi has worked to ensure that midwives are not just represented, but heard — at the state capitol, in state maternal health taskforces, and in coalition with organizations across the maternal health community. She has been instrumental in drafting midwifery licensure legislation in Georgia since 2019 and has moved that legislation further in the state capitol than ever before, building the relationships and demonstrating the evidence needed to bring CPMs into Georgia's maternal health system.
Missi holds a BS in Midwifery from Midwives College of Utah and a Master of Arts in Maternal-Child Health Systems from Bastyr University, where her graduate research explored integrating direct-entry midwives into state-level health systems. She is also the founder of Georgia Midwife Skills Day.
Vice President
Maria Cranford, MSM CPM LM is a Certified Professional Midwife licensed in three states, with over a decade of practice. She is former Clinical Director of the nation's largest Certified Professional Midwifery program, and she currently serves as Vice President of the Georgia chapter of the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives (NACPM).
A resident of Rome, Georgia, Maria cannot legally practice in her home state and instead attends births in rural northeast Alabama and the Chattanooga, Tennessee area — a firsthand illustration of the access gap at the heart of Arrest the Midwife. Her work centers on preserving every family's ability to receive legal, safe care from the birth provider of their choice.
She previously served on a state perinatal quality collaborative in a state that fully legalizes all midwifery pathways — nurse-midwifery, licensed direct-entry midwifery, and traditional midwifery. Working with a multidisciplinary team, she helped develop hospital transfer guidelines and analyze community-birth data to shape maternal health policy. As president of that state's midwives association, she advocated at the legislature to protect the profession's legality and autonomy.
Secretary
Krystal Reese, image and bio coming soon!
Board Member at Large
Delandra Vinson is a Certified Professional Midwife and the owner of
Labor of Love Doula & Childbirth Services, a doula agency serving the
metro Atlanta area. Delandra’s career in birth work began in 2006 as a
Certified Birth Doula. She decided to pursue a career in midwifery in
2017 after witnessing the differences among birth settings and care
providers, and noting how information, emotional support, and the
Midwifery Model of Care positively impacts birth outcomes and maternal
satisfaction. She has had the honor of welcoming over 800 babies in
the metro Atlanta area as a Labor Doula and Professional Midwife.
Ms. Vinson holds her BS in Business Administration from Florida A&M
University and her BS in Midwifery from the Midwives College of Utah.
She also holds the Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) Credential.
Delandra is an Atlanta native, currently living in Mableton, GA with
her two smart, talented children and six pet reptiles.