The International Center for Traditional Childbearing has two doula trainings this year that I wanted to highlight.
I’ve written about their work before, but they are on of the only doula groups that focuses on working within communities of color, specifically the African American community. I’ve heard great things about their work.
2010 Full Circle Doula Trainings:
April 15-18, 2010 in Atlanta, GA
May 20-23, 2010 in Richmond, VA
More info here.
We are Brooklyn, New York–based independent producers developing two film projects about doulas who have dedicated themselves to working with pregnant incarcerated people. We are seeking to meet women who would like to share their stories and experience in order to raise awareness on the issues these people—both the doulas and the women they seek to serve and advocate for—face on a daily basis. If you are a part of a group starting or maintaining a prison doula program in your state, we would very much like to hear from you.We look forward to meeting you. Please contact: monipeterson@gmail.com.
Kindly, Laura Sweeney & Monique Peterson
There is a great article up at RH Reality Check, written by Mary Mahoney, one of the founders of The Doula Project. I’ve written about the NYC-based Doula Project before, and am honored to have been one of the founders.
All the credit for what the project has become goes to co-founders Mary and Lauren, who took some very early stage ideas about providing doula care to folks having abortions and turned it into this amazing project which supports people throughout all stages of reproductive life, including abortion, fetal anomalies, miscarriages, adoption and birth.
I think this project takes doula care to its natural end–we’re there to support pregnant folks, through any and all decisions.
The Doula Project has served over 500 pregnant people since the fall of 2008, guided by the mission of providing free compassionate care and emotional, physical and informational support to people facing birth, abortion, fetal anomaly, or miscarriage. The foundation of our project is built on meeting pregnant people where they are, something I’ve taken with me from working four years in the reproductive justice movement. This connects to our belief that pregnant people should be trusted to make the choices that are best for them and that their experiences and the memories of those experiences should be honored.
Doulas hold a unique position in health care as non-medical lay people who are there solely for the pregnant person. The birth doula movement has certainly grown over the past few years, and innovative and radical projects have expanded care for pregnant people who might otherwise not receive it, such as young mothers and women in prison. During this time, The Doula Project has been building on a new model of doula care: one that supports pregnant people having abortions and choosing adoption.
Read the whole article here and check out the Doula Project here.
UPDATE: There is another great article about the Doula Project in the Brooklyn Link.
More news on the shackling front. The good news is that this horrific practice is finally getting some much needed media attention. The bad news is that it still happens, despite policy changes that are meant to eradicate the practice.
Philadelphia Weekly has an in-depth article about one woman’s experience being shackled during labor for over 17 hours. She even has scars on her ankles to prove it.
I was happy to see that she had a doula with her, who tried to get the shackles taken off, to no avail.
The descriptions of Torres’ experience are really horrific. I admire her courage for telling her story, with the hope that it will never happen again.
Being shackled during labor was just one of many dehumanizing moments Torres says she endured: When she was transported outside of the prison, a chain was wrapped two times around her body, just below her breasts and above her stomach, and then placed into a lockbox where her wrists were secured with handcuffs. A confident and careful speaker, Torres intermittently pauses to reflect on her story’s implications. “The squatting and the coughing [to search for hidden drugs and weapons]… I did even at nine months pregnant.”
These stories just further reveal a truth that many of us ignore–the dehumanizing and unjust practices of the criminal justice system. It isn’t just pregnant women who need to be treated better in prison.
In reaction to stories like these, a PA legislator, Senator David Leach, has introduced legislation to ban the practice.
The article also highlights the amazing work of three doulas working at Riverside Correctional Facility. I’ve been seeing an increasing number of doulas looking to work with incarcerated women as folks reveal the conditions that women often labor under. This program is even staffed by paid doulas–the other programs I know are volunteer.
Danyell Williams sleeps with her cell phone like a doctor with her omnipresent pager. The 37-year-old Philadelphia native and her three staff members—all trained doulas—are each on call for two weeks every other month, rushing to the hospital when they get word of an impending birth. Over last year’s Fourth of July weekend, Williams worked through 23 sleepless hours of labor.
MOMobile’s program at Riverside is groundbreaking. “We’re one of the only ones in the country,” says Williams. Since the beginning of the doula program in November 2006, MOMobile has attended 42 births.
The doulas are the only intimate human contact that jailed women have while giving birth. “When you’re incarcerated, the only people allowed in are security staff and MOMobile,” says Williams.
The good news of all of this is that there has been little opposition to legislation looking to ban the practice. The challenge comes with the bureaucracy of the prisons and the chain of command that often ignores legislation and procedural changes.
Read the whole piece here.
Thanks to New Voices Pittsburgh and La’Tasha Mayes for the link.
Although this is new to me, it’s news from October. CAPPA announced that certified doulas will now be able to apply for insurance reimbursement through Medicaid and other third party insurance companies.
According to CAPPA, certified doulas can register for an NPI (national provider identification number) under the heading of “Nursing Service Related Providers Type.” (NOTE: According to CAPPA, you do not need to be a nurse).
Their post about this doesn’t explain which certifications count (DONA? CAPPA? toLabor?) or what the reimbursement might actually be.
These steps are really important for expanding access to doula care to those without the means, but who might have private insurance or Medicaid. The downside is that inclusion in insurance programs also usually mean stricter regulation of doulas, usually via certification. Right now, certification is just an administrative (and financial) hurdle doulas have to cross, but it’s possible that it could get harder as the role of the doula becomes more professionalized.
Will it be harder to be a radical doula in a super-professionalized doula world? It’s possible. (For more on why I’m not certified, go here).
Professionalization has also been a struggle for midwives. It’s meant more rigorous standards for education (and only certain types of education count), training and even malpractice insurance. It’s a double-bind, since for low-income women to have access to doula and midwifery care, we need insurance inclusion, but insurance inclusion means tighter regulation and restrictions on how we practice.
Anyone have experience getting reimbursed by insurance companies or Medicaid for their doula services?
A fellow doula emailed to inquire about volunteer doula programs in New Jersey–she’s particularly interested in Northern New Jersey.
She’s interested in getting one together if there isn’t one already. If you know of any, leave them info in comments or email me.
The complete list of volunteer doula programs is here, and feel free to send info about any other programs I don’t have listed.
I’ve been wanting to write about doulas, pregnancy and swine flu (also known as H1N1) for a while now. The epidemic has alternately fascinated and frightened me since the first reports of it last Spring.
Lately the hype has died down, although we are in the midst of flu season, the one that world health officials would bring serious deaths and contamination across the US. I’ve noticed an huge increase in public education and awareness campaigns about washing hands, getting vaccinated and staying home from school or work if you are sick. I’ve even seen hand-sanitizer machines installed in public areas like bus and train stations. I’ll leave my thoughts about hand sanitation for another day, but let’s say I’m skeptical about the negative effects (including breeding super-strain versions of viruses).
Today, Women’s E-News published a piece about the 28 pregnant women who have died as a result of swine flu so far, so I decided it was time to delve in to the issue.
From Women’s E-News:
At least 28 pregnant women with H1N1, commonly known as swine flu, died last year in the United States and another 100 were admitted to an intensive care unit through Aug. 21, according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, figures. Pregnant women are 7.7 times more likely to die from H1N1 compared with the general population, according to an August 2009 editorial in the medical journal Lancet.
However, pregnant women who get the H1N1 vaccine get sick less often and their babies are less likely to get sick with the flu than babies whose mothers did not get a flu shot, the CDC says.
Those are some scary figures, especially for pregnant women, who are often barraged with information about what could go wrong (see: what to expect when you’re expecting) and lots of fear during that time. Couple that with sensationalist media coverage about how WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE FROM SWINE FLU TOMORROW and you’ve got an unpleasant situation.
Peggy Fitzgerald, the Board Chair of Open Arms Perinatal Services, emailed me recently to tell me more about her organization. I thought I’d share what she had to say in this post.
I actually interviewed some of the folks at Open Arms last year for an article I wrote about access to home birth in Washington State for RH Reality Check. You can read it here.
Here is what Peggy had to say about their program:
We’re a group in the Seattle area who provide doulas for low income women – but as far as I know, we’re the only organization in the country that provides PAID (market rate) doulas for women serving this population, free of charge to our clients. We believe strongly that as much as women deserve to be served regardless of ability to pay, women also deserve to be paid for their work (because women’s work IS valuable, right?), and we pay market rate to our doulas to serve the population. How’s that for radical?
Of course, we’re challenged by funding, as are many other organizations, and this year due to county funding being cut for us along with most small nonprofits, we were able to make up the gap through having volunteer doulas supplement our paid doulas. Even our volunteers however are paid a stipend to defray cost of serving our clients – so no one has to serve for free. Thanks to the efforts of volunteers, we could not only serve as many clients as we served in 2008, but we exceeded that number by 28% in 2009. However our paid doulas still are going strong and we hope next year to increase the amount of doulas we can pay, because it’s a core belief of our organization.
I agree with Peggy that is it great to provide doulas to women who would otherwise not have access and still be able to pay the doulas for their time. Volunteering in itself is a luxury, and not all of us have the time or the means to do unpaid work.
Peggy also alerted me to the new Open Arms blog, which you can check out here.
For more info, visit their website.
And just out of curiosity, is Peggy right? Is Open Arms the only volunteer doula program that fundraises enough to pay their doulas? Let us know in comments!
There is a great segment on Grit.tv about childbirth in the US, featuring Debra Pascali-Bonaro (my doula trainer!) of the Orgasmic Birth documentary.
“The Bellevue Hospital Natural Birth center in Manhattan, one of the few centers that cater not to the wealthy but to poor women, closed this month amid controversy. With the ongoing debate about health care reform and costs, decisions about childbirth are getting lost in the shuffle. We discuss the closing of the birth center and the medicalization of childbirth with Katherine Abelson, midwife at the Brooklyn Birthing Center, Elan McAllister, doula and president and founder of Choices in Childbirth, and Debra Pascali-Bonaro, doula and director and producer of Orgasmic Birth.”
Full video after the jump!
In order to highlight the work of the great volunteer doula programs around the country, I’m going to have guest posts from folks involved with those programs to talk about their work. The first guest post comes from Katie Daily, who coordinates the volunteer program at the Family Health and Birth Center in Washington DC.
I’ve actually recently gotten involved with the program and am inspired by the diversity of the doulas involved and their passion for birth activism. Thanks to Katie for the guest post!
Here’s Katie:
“…having a doula there was my balance. I was still taking care of my family, and their needs, my doula was there to take care of me.”- Kari, FHBC mother of two
Family Health and Birth Center follows the DONA International mission of “a doula for every woman who wants one.” Located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Washington, DC, FHBC provides multidisciplinary health care in a social context by building on the existing strengths of the families being served. A team of midwives, nurse practitioners, community health workers, and administrative staff work together to achieve impressive clinical outcomes. Success is evident by low rates of preterm birth, low birth weight, and cesarean section as compared to those of similar families in the District.
Doulas provide continuous physical, emotional, and informational support the mother before, during, and just after childbirth. Many of our doulas volunteer their services through an on-call calendar, while others are contracted to provide intensive long-term relationships to pregnant women at-risk for preterm labor. These dual programs ensure that FHBC can offer doula support to all women in our care. Doula care complements the individualized, evidence-based care offered by midwives.
In the first half of 2009, our doulas attended over 50 births, providing almost 400 hours of labor support – mostly on a volunteer basis. Our volunteers area diverse group of women dedicated to supporting birthing families. FHBC offers continuing education and mentoring opportunities to these often new, student doulas. In the future we hope to recruit and train more women from the community to serve as doulas.
Radical Doula 