In Person Doula support
Brooklyn New York base, serving Black and Brown families in all the surrounding areas.
(I do not work with white people in person but offer Virtual Doula Services to all families of all races globally).
I have been a Doula for 7 years and my training consists of numerous Birth and Postpartum Doula training courses, Lactation, Babywearing, grief/pregnancy/ infant loss support, and more. I am also an educator and have trained birth and postpartum Doulas. I support homebirths with midwifery support, freebirths, and hospital births.
My Doula work is postpartum centered because I believe that postpartum is forever- it is a state of being after having a child and it should be honored and supported forever.
Pandemic safety:
I am immune compromised, a single mother, and often serve clients who are also immune compromised- supporting births, particularly in hospitals risks my safety and livelihood therefore I take safety very seriously and also think it is important as a community for us to center care for each other, especially the most vulnerable/marginalized.I am vaccinated, boosted, and mask in all indoor public spaces. I also Covid test regularly and although I do not expect anyone to wear a mask while laboring I do require all families I work with to mask prenatally in sessions with me, take a Covid tests, and provide negative Covid test results before we meet in person.
Here in New York, Black birthing people are 9-12x more likely to die then white ones. This is due to both medical racism and racial weathering. Black people in America have the highest birthing death rate and Black Babies have the highest infant mortality rate.
In my research, I learned that a very large percentage of this death and medical negligence happens in the postpartum time period- that that particular time is when Black people are very vulnerable and often very alone. Warning signs are often missed or purposefully ignored.
And even this conversation of talking about these racial disparities negatively impacts the health of the Black people reading it. So if we are going to discuss it it needs to be solution based.
While we know these devastating numbers, the major work is to protect the living.
To change how this world treats Black people all the time, not just in birth.
The system isn’t broke, it is functioning exactly as it was designed, so my hope is that supporting Black families in this way aids in ripping these systems to shreds.
Black lives matter all the time, everyday in every way.
