(Photo Courtesy/ Elaine Baca)

Aaren Herndon’s 6-month-old was cooing in the background of our phone call as we discussed her birthing experience. The baby’s babbling sounds were juxtaposed with her mother’s harrowing story of labor and delivery — to say that things didn't go as planned would be an understatement.

“Emotionally, I'm super strong. There are moments where I may settle in and think about the experience and it's like, oh, I should be crying about that. That was horrible. I just don't allow myself to go there, and I don't know if that's because even from the beginning, I anticipated having a different experience as an African-American. But, I have a healthy baby girl, and that just seems to be all that matters,” Herndon said.

She spoke matter-of-factly about feeling fearful at her first OB-GYN appointment when the doctor encouraged a cesarean over a natural birth. After that appointment, Herndon knew she wanted a doula —someone to be an ally in the delivery room, especially considering the statistics for Black maternal mortality in Georgia. But, stricter COVID-19 protocols in the hospital meant that Herndon’s doula, Dzifa Richards, could not be in the delivery room.

Fearful and swayed by her doctors, Herndon endured an induction, a day and a half of labor, a cesarean, and a trip to the emergency room for shortness of breath only a few days later. During this visit, she experienced an hours-long wait in a COVID-19 unit instead of the maternity unit, even though she had repeatedly tested negative. Although Herndon and Richards remained in constant contact, she felt that the circumstances of her delivery would have been different if her doula was allowed in the room.

Richards is a holistically-trained labor doula and a licensed physician assistant. In 2013, Richards founded A Womban’s Place in Atlanta, Georgia, to give women the tools to transform and empower themselves throughout pregnancy, delivery and postpartum. Richards is still advocating for her clients through the pandemic, even if she can’t be with them during delivery.

As an experienced birth doula, Richards said she often sees the failures of Western medicine to address clients in a holistic way. She wants all of her clients to be informed about their bodies and their options during pregnancy and in the delivery room, which can often be a daunting and fearful place for Black pregnant people.

“Western medicine tends to control birth and pregnancy in a different kind of way. It doesn't allow for the fluidity of birth; everyone's birth is very different. Everyone's first story is very different, everyone's body is different, but the Western medicine stays the same,” said Richards.

In the clip below, Richards describes how offering physical and emotional support to her clients is necessary to remove as much fear as possible from the birthing process.

Black Doulas Build a Network of Support in Georgia

Black doulas in Georgia are fighting the second-highest maternal mortality rates in the country by bringing compassion and support back to birthwork, and encouraging traditional methods of birthing and healing to treat women of color more holistically.

By definition, a doula is a non-medical, trained professional who provides information as well as emotional and physical support for birthing parents during pregnancy, delivery and postpartum. But, it’s not uncommon for birth doulas to also have medical training. A doula works with birthing parents to create a plan and promote emotional and physical wellness. They also add a layer of informed communication between patients and doctors.

While doctors and nurses are in control of monitoring the medical and technical aspects of birth by making sure the birthing parent and baby remain physically healthy throughout pregnancy, labor, and delivery, doulas are focused on supporting and informing clients.

Why It’s Newsworthy: Doulas are advocates in the delivery room, and for women of color, their advocacy is working to combat high Black maternal mortality rates across the nation.

The National Black Doula Association (NBDA) is one organization working to connect Black birthing parents with Black doulas. It began as an online directory where Black doulas could list their practice, and has since evolved into an international connection and doula training organization. The sect of Black doulas in Georgia mainly exist in the Atlanta area, with a few doulas practicing in rural areas.

Victoria Snowden is a full-spectrum doula and community herbalist in Albany, Georgia, whose birthwork is mainly centered around birth justice for Black women and birthing persons. She entered the field as a death doula, helping clients manage fears about death in holistic ways, but quickly realized she also had an interest in birthwork.

“While I was in that sphere, I also realized how death and life are pretty much different sides of the same coin. And there were so many problems in the birthing sphere as well, and then finding out there were three to four times more black women who were dying in childbirth than non-black counterparts. I was like, okay, this is another sphere that I feel like I'm needed in,” said Snowden.

Most of Snowden’s clients are Black women in her community. Through her work, she hopes to address implicit and explicit bias in health care, and provide adequate support for programs and advocacy groups that center black birthing people's perinatal and postpartum needs. She also emphasized the importance of implementing policies that regulate treatment protocol to minimize provider biases, and enforcing laws that protect black mothers and other black birthing people against discrimination.