Reclaiming Community Power
Since 2018, Day One Doula Collective has offered a variety of training — from their community-based doula training program to a breastfeeding peer educator course. Baskin says they’ve been able to offer educational resources to more than 50 individuals.
“So for us, it’s really about reclamation, and really just learning what has always been ours,” she said.
Dating back to the 1600s, African enslaved people in the United States who had been trained and practiced as midwives in their home countries continued to do so and train others. According to research gathered from the Smithsonian in a blog post, the terms midwife, granny-midwife and granny were used to describe traditional Black Midwives. “Slave owners used these medical practitioners to ensure the health of their reproducing enslaved women and their newborn infants to expand their labor force,” states the blog entry on the Smithsonian.
Up until the 1940s, these midwives attended more than 75% of births in the south. Despite that, Black midwives often were excluded by white male doctors from accessing opportunities to practice as healthcare providers in hospitals and clinics.
Baskin says teaching other birthing people of color how to be doulas is about relearning what was taken from their communities.
“It’s sharing our rituals, ceremonies, traditions to get back to what we have already done,” she said.
According to data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, parents who receive assistance during birth from doulas are four times less likely to have a baby with low birth weight, two times less likely to experience a birth complication and significantly more likely to initiate breastfeeding with their baby.
Christy Bell graduated as a doula from Day One Doula Collective three years ago.
“I always wanted to be a doula because a lot of women don’t have the mindset to advocate for themselves and they’re very quiet,” she said. “So although they know something is wrong, they don’t have that bravery to say, ‘This is my first birth. I want it to be like this and I don’t want anybody else to dictate my birth.’”
Since graduating, Bell has supported over 15 people in their births.
“Now, it’s just refreshing and it’s just like your sister, or a cousin, or a niece, or a close friend – you build bonds with a family, you build relationships with them, long term ones,” she said.
To Bell, a birth supported by a doula who looks like the parent can make the experience more peaceful and less stressful.
“You are literally allowing your body to do what it’s supposed to do. You’re not forcing anything. And it’s just making mom more comfortable, more peaceful and allowing her to get that desired birth that she wants, that she has dreamed of having,” she added.
More than anything, Bell says she’s realized how meaningful this work can be, especially when supporting a young girl during birth.
“I get the opportunity to teach them about their body and gain body awareness — sometimes we are the only support that they have,” she added. “I tell them that just because they are pregnant or have a baby it doesn’t dictate their destiny and they can continue to go to school or do whatever they want.”
In those sacred moments, Bell says her clients open and share their dreams and goals for themselves and their babies.
