Community Doula Program Archives - Debra Pascali-Bonaro

rotondi+birth-1 by Regina M. Conceição, BA, CD(DONA), CLC

My first doula experience happened when I was 13 years old, although I didn’t know it at the time. Every day after school towards the end of my aunt’s pregnancy my mother would send me over for a couple of hours to help her with chores around the house. I remember Titi Manda being so big and swollen and unable to bend down and dust her living room end tables. My job was to take care of the dishes, help her with the cleaning and just make her feel more comfortable in general. When my cousin was born I still loved helping. I changed diapers, kept the baby entertained and helped by putting him to sleep. I loved it so much and my Aunt loved the help so much that when she was pregnant again four years later I willingly took the chance to be by her side and help out. Despite the fact this was my own family, these experiences ignited a lifelong commitment to serve and support mothers during their time of need.

Fast forward to the end of my junior year in college I discovered midwifery and doula care in one of my Women’s Studies courses. Learning about midwifery struck a chord with me and I made the decision to become a doula after doing a little more research on what exactly a doula did. I enrolled at Hands of Light a traditional midwifery and healing arts school in Fitchburg, Mass that offered one weekend a month classes on becoming a doula and DONA doula training as well. I traveled from CT one weekend a month for a year and received my doula certification.

In 2004 I was hired by Columbia University Early Head Start’s newly formed Perinatal Support Program (PSP). At PSP I assisted with organizing our program’s doula training with Debra Bascali-Bonaro. After receiving my second DONA doula training I worked towards my certification. At PSP I was able to provide doula services to pregnant mothers living below the poverty line and living in under-served communities. Providing doula services to PSP participants I was able to hone in on my skills on how to support mothers and their families. I learned how to provide education, logistical planning, and social support to help reduce stress associated with preterm labor and connect families to community resources. I officially became a certified DONA doula in 2007 and established my doula business, A Passion for New Beginnings, Inc. (APNB). After 5 years at Columbia University Early Head Start Perinatal Support Program I decided to leave and focus on APNB’s growth and development.

A few months after leaving PSP, I began to feel a huge void in my heart. Although I enjoyed working with private clients I deeply missed my community doula work. To help fill the void I would occasionally volunteer and teach a class to PSP. Then one day while reading The Metropolitan Doula group email digest there was an inquiry about forming a community doula program in Brooklyn to help improve maternal infant mortality rates. I immediately responded to the email and shared my experience with PSP and connected the sender of the email with my former supervisor. In December 2009 By My Side was born and I along with 3 other doula colleagues started to provide doula services to low income women in Brooklyn.

My involvement with By My Side has been filled with many amazing and intense moments. When the father of one family was deported, leaving the pregnant mother alone with two other children under the age of five, I decided to reach out to one of my former clients and asked them to post on their parent list serve that I was looking for donations of gently used baby items, clothes and toys for my client’s other children. A few days later I made arrangements to pick up the items directly from the donor and learned that she was a former attorney who wanted to start a nonprofit organization to connect families to donations of essential baby and children’s items. I eventually connected the donor with By My Side’s program director and from there she gave birth to her nonprofit organization, Little Essentials. That encounter also provided an additional blessing as the donor ended up hiring my client after she had her baby to clean her house!

I have had By My Side clients decide to become doulas after they have worked with me. Mothers have been inspired to start small doula businesses, provide cooking classes, artisanal craft shops, etc. within their community. One mother is now a By My Side Doula. A family By My Side was blessed to have a second time was a mother and father working on creating their small marketing and branding business. I spent 2 hours of pushing in various positions with this couple. Pushing looked like a game of Twister; my body bending, and arms stretching. My body still remembers that birth, but I wouldn’t change that experience for the world. Two weeks after that birth my client’s small business picked up and now they are running it full time and they recently helped with By My Side’s doula campaign! My other experiences are bearing witness to families advocating for themselves, owning their birth stories and watching sometimes reluctant partners help mothers in labor.

Being a By My Side Doula hasn’t always been easy. I have encountered many difficult experiences which have made me contemplate continuing my community doula work. Thankfully, By My Side has a team of gifted, amazing, and talented doulas available whenever you need them. They have literally “doulaed” me back to life and my life purpose. Through my work with By My Side I am able to hold space for laboring clients. It is an honor and privilege for me to be allowed into such a sacred time and space. I consider myself blessed to be a part of a community doula program making such a difference improving birth outcomes one birth at a time. By My Side is truly by your side.

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“Birth must be honored and given every opportunity for the growth that is inherent in its potential.” – Raven Lang

Regina M. Conceição’s passion is rooted in the women’s studies movement – A woman’s strength is staunch, resolute, and purposeful. Her unwavering fervor for life is exuberantly demonstrated in her work guided by this women’s studies conviction. Inclusive, Regina is an avid advocate of midwifery and the integrative approach promoted by the midwifery model of care. She is the force behind A Passion for New Beginnings – learn more.

The Healthy Start Brooklyn Program (HSB) seeks to improve the health and wellness of women, infants, and their families in Central Brooklyn. Rates of infant death, premature birth, and illness in the neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville, Bushwick, East New York, and Flatbush are far higher than elsewhere in New York City and the United States. To enhance the lives of families in these neighborhoods, HSB supports services, education, and training. By My Side Doula program is a (HSB) funded project. to learn more visit: http://www.fphny.org/media/pdf/HSB-Brochure.pdf or contact 646.253.5700

Interested in becoming a doula?

Join Debra Pascali-Bonaro for an upcoming workshop or retreat.

Healthy Women Healthy Futures: Postpartum Doula Workshop at the Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership in Harlem, NYC April 21 – 24, 2015.

Creating a village of support for MotherBaby and families in New York City.

Last month was an especially special month for me. I have had a dream, that began almost 30 years ago when I first became a doula, that every MotherBaby, father, partner and family would be able to have a nurturing, unconditionally supportive doula with them during childbirth and postpartum. A doula provides access to information and comfort, and helps parents navigate the many choices and options they have in pregnancy, labor, birth, breastfeeding and the postpartum period with love and respect so they can make informed collaborative decisions and create lasting positive birth memories.

This seemed like a big dream given that in the U.S few women truly know all their options in childbirth. In the U.S., medicalized birth is like an industrialized conveyor belt to the point that women often do not receive personalized, continuous, compassionate care. The overuse of technology has left many women feeling more like an object than a sacred being at the time they are bringing new life into the world. Combine our birth practices with the fact that the U.S has the shortest maternity stays of the Western world, no postpartum home care or follow-up, and provides new mothers with less information and support than if you began a job at a fast food chain. I have never understood why a country that prides ourselves on motherhood and families, offers the least options of all other western countries and lacks services that care for and prepare our Mothers and families for healthy beginnings.

I have worked for 30 years to support the growth of doulas and community doula programs; community women who are trained to support women and their partners and families through the childbearing continuum. Doulas nurture, educate, enhance communication, provide comfort, refer and offer their one-to-one support and care that we know is essential for mothers to have gentler, easier birth with lower rates of interventions including reduced risk of cesarean birth, increased success and duration of breastfeeding, lower rates of depression, less isolation so that both MotherBaby survive and thrive!

As the years have gone on and doulas have grown informally and formally all around the world, I have been blessed to share doula workshops in 28 countries, in each region of the world. I have held strong to my vision of doulas becoming integrated into our health care system and recognized by government and policy makers. Yet, I wondered why — with all the compelling research and NO side effects — our system was resistant to the role that human companionship could play in improving medical outcomes. As the late Dr. Kennell who researched the many benefits of doula care said: “if a doula were are drug it would be unethical to withhold her!” Why Why are there still so many barriers to implementing doula care [or programs], despite evidence demonstrating so many benefits?

Can you hear me yelling out the widows of NYC? Yes, the NY City Council has seen the value of doulas and funded a pilot project Healthy Women Healthy Futures showing NY’s commitment to our mothers in the sensitive, vulnerable time of pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding. The program was developed by small group of caring individuals once again showing the power of a small group to create awareness and change- Ekua Ansah-Samuels, Fajah Ferrer, Elan McCallister, Nan Strauss, Arielle Cheifetz, Mary Powell and other amazing women who all came together as one dynamo force. A diverse coalition of birth workers and dedicated supporters have joined together to make this vision into a reality. They include – Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership, the Department of Health, Choices in Childbirth.

“Our hope is that Healthy Women, Healthy Futures will serve as a model for community-based doula programs throughout the country. Community-based organizations, doulas, educators, and health care policy-makers and advocates have joined together in this effort to put women’s needs front and center.” Read more

Healthy Women Healthy Futures is an investment in our families, our communities, society and our next generation. Thank you NY City Council for your dedication and vision for MotherBabies of NY.

Last month, I had the honor of facilitating a DONA International Postpartum Doula workshop for this collaborative program. Pinch Me! Yes, My dream is coming true. My heart is overflowing as I welcomed 21 doulas who will go back to provide support through the following collaborative agencies:

Brooklyn: Ancient Song Doula Services, Brooklyn Perinatal Network, Inc.

Bronx: The Bronx Health Link

Manhattan: Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership

Queens: Queens Comprehensive Perinatal Council. Inc.

Staten Island: Caribbean Women’s Health Association, Inc.

Community Health Center of Richmond

Our workshop of 21 new doulas brought together and honored our diversity in every way, speaking many languages including Polish, Chinese, Spanish, and English, and hailing from many different cultural, religious, community and traditional and non-traditional backgrounds. We wove together a rich tapestry of wisdom that they are ready to birth forward to women in their communities.

Doula workshops are filled with emotions, as we create a sisterhood, filled with special moments of sharing our stories, experience, challenges and joys. One moment that was extra special to me was a morning circle where we shared our nurturing touch with each other, gentle strokes on our shoulders, necks, and head ending as we told each other an empowering statement. A beautiful deep connection was felt by all and the lack of this type of nurturing between women in our own communities was sadly discussed. Doulas are truly reconnecting an essential circle of women to support and care for each other. It does take a village! Healthy Women Healthy Futures is creating a village of support for women, for doulas, for every pregnant women to have access to information, respect, nurturing, care, comfort and the guidance she needs and deserves so she can care for and nurture her baby in the ways she dreams of. Doulas mother the mother so that she gains confidence and will then mother her baby.

Join my dream.

This Mother’s Day add your support by contributing to improve care for all MotherBabies around the world starting with Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership. The Community doulas of NYC are in need of books, and doula supplies. If you have any doula tips, tricks, books or supplies, please send them to The Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership C/O Fajah Ferrer, 127 West 127th Street, Third Floor New York, New York 10027. Thank you!