MILWAUKEE – A Milwaukee non-profit has taken steps to take on racial disparities in maternal and infant health by bringing more doulas into the workforce.
African American Breastfeeding Network Executive Director, Dalvery Blackwell said 17 people of color graduated from their 20-week doula training Saturday.
Shaday Simms was one of those newly certified graduates. She said was motivated to become a doula following her own experience into motherhood.
“56 hours into labor I ended up having to have an emergency c-section, my water bag was broken for too long and so I almost died during that birth,” she recalled. “I didn’t want anyone else to go through the same experience that I did.”
According to Blackwell, the demand for doulas has increased quite a bit because people are sharing their stories with one another more openly.
In fact, Blackwell said she and a lot of the program’s participants have also had their own negative experiences through the birthing process.
“We've heard these stories of black and brown women being harmed or birthing people being harmed, in a hospital setting in particular, through discriminatory practices, through even just basic how they're treated,” she explained.
According to the CDC in 2021, Black infants had a mortality almost three times that of their white counterparts. The doula training program’s goal is to help improve those experiences for both mother and child.
“When I learned about what doulas do in regard to the advocacy in regards to partnership, the education that they give, I felt like yes,” Simms said.
Blackwell said the program was so successful that AABN already has a waitlist of about 30 people going for their next session in February 2024.
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