Awen Birth

REPOSTED • Are you in the Los Angeles area and thinking of getting pregnant or are currently pregnant? Do you have any friends, colleagues, family members who are pregnant? Do you like to have options? Then keep reading:

Without going into any ranting about the importance of doula support, I wanted to share current information about the status of Los Angeles hospitals: who is accepting doulas as an essential part of the care team and who is not.

Hospitals Accepting doulas:
Little Company of Mary
MLK Hospital
Providence St. Joe's
California Hospital Medical Center

Hospitals not accepting doulas:
UCLA Santa Monica OR Westwood
Providence St. Johns
Cedar Sinai
Kaiser Permanente Group
Good Samaritan
etc.

THIS NEXT PART IS VERY IMPORTANT:

If you want doula support at your birth, you can have it.

You can choose to not give birth at a hospital that will not allow doula support AND you can find a good care provider at a hospital that has your well-being at the forefront and knows the importance of having a doula as a part of your team.

MLK hospital's L&D floor is midwife led. So is California Hospital Medical Center, where you can also have a water birth if you wish!

If you are currently with the UCLA Midwives and you want midwifery care AND your doula, maybe consider switching to the midwives who work at MLK or California Hospital.

shared a list of Little Company of Mary providers who she recommends. Also good to know, they have a doula on staff who participates in administrative decisions for the hospital.

PMI Group: Dr. Ishimaru, Dr. Sanders, etc.
Dr. Richey
Dr. Carilyn Sparks
Dr. Richard Frieder
Dr. Jamie Liepeles (but not for a vBac)

St. Joes. OB Recommendation:
Dr Tomayo

You are not stuck. You do not need to switch to a homebirth if that is not your jam. You can have a hospital birth AND a doula, you just need to choose a hospital that supports this choice. Please share far and wide. Get the message out.

REPOST • As influencers & businesses get called out for shady & unethical practices during Covid, let’s start shining a light on Hospitals, specifically L& D.
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•Despite essential worker status, doulas have not been able to support their clients during hospital births since March as hospitals label them as a “visitor”
•Hospitals maintain that for safety, only 1 support person is allowed and no visitors postpartum however several hospitals have offered to sneak in doulas for affluent clients (lookin’ at you St. John’s in Santa Monica)
•Due to this, some birthing people are forced to choose between their birth partner & their doula. Plainly, this is a choice between birthing with an informed, evidenced based advocate or a family member/other parent of baby being born
•Hospitals are often understaffed meaning if the one support person steps out, birthing people are often left to labor alone
•Statistically, having a doula present during birth lowers unnecessary interventions, inductions, cesareans, & routine obstetric violence
•Since Covid, unnecessary inductions, interventions & cesareans have been noted as being on the rise
•The markup for induction meds, intervention equipment, & cesarean surgeries is high & while often paid by insurance, leads to huge profits for hospitals
•Most hospitals do not have proper lactation programs or enough staff trained in proper, biological lactation
•Despite using Covid as an excuse to keep doulas out, some hospitals are allowing private photographers hired by the hospital to visit postpartum rooms to solicit newborn photos at cost to client (how is this not an unnecessary “visitor”?)
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What do the above facts mean when pieced together?
That’s for you determine.
I could tell you that the business you pay thousands of dollars to perform a service is overcharging & under delivering
I could mention the trend of obstetrics using birthing bodies to their benefit is continuing
I could tell you that you’re worthy of more than being subject to routine & normalized trauma
But if you take away anything, it’s that we need to start demanding more for these bodies that create, carry, & deliver life.

Posted • Dear

Stop punishing birthing peoples. Let. Us. In. @ Los Angeles, California

Posted • HAPPY JUNETEENTH- BLACK GRANNY MIDWIVES BIRTHED A NATION.
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The first African Midwives arrived in America in 1619, bringing with them ancestral knowledge of healing wisdom from an array of African cultures and their rich and for prenatal care. Their extensive knowledge and well honed skills allowed them to care for enslaved black women and white women in the US and as well as deliver their babies. Very often the midwives would look after entire families, providing primary care for women, pediatric care for infants and , and medical care for men when necessary. Black Granny Midwives are integral to American history to the historical fabric of the obstetric and midwifery professions in United States.
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Legislative action combined with racist propaganda was used to change an entire health care system and ancestral way of life, contributing to the development of health and reproductive disparities that persist to this day. Black midwives were scapegoated for the high infant mortality rates in the rural south when in fact their birth outcomes were far better than those of physicians, because obstetrics was a very new practice and the ancestral knowledge about the sacred womb was extensive and passed down for generations.
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There was a systematic elimination of Black Midwives and their practices because new legislation provided reimbursement for obstetrical care suddenly making Black women attractive potential clientele to white physicians.
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This is Maude Callen, born in 1898 in Florida, she went to South Carolina in the 1920s to work as a nurse-midwife in the most disenfranchised communities in the Lowcountry. She operated a community clinic from her rural home. She delivered hundreds of babies over the decades, taught prenatal care, she also trained women to become midwives.
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The Legacy of Black Midwives is not celebrated as part of our rich history in this nation but we need to collectively bow to the women who delivered this nation. ✊🏾

Reposted Birthworkers of Los Angeles!

A group of us have gotten together to work on getting doulas back into the hospitals and bringing back the hands on emotional and physical support that birthing families deserve!

This is ESPECIALLY needed for BIPOC and LGBTQIA families!

We want this effort to represent the diverse birth community in Los Angeles.

We need your voice.

Come join our chat Tuesday, June 16th at 8:30pm.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/6899664756…

Meeting ID: 689 966 4756
Password: DoulaDana

Reposted via • visit ’s page for link to template to send to local officials ‼️ ACT NOW 📢 〰️ Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital (MLKCH), located in South LA, is facing budget cuts that could severely impact the Labor & Delivery unit. If this happens, it will inevitably harm women in South LA, who are mostly BIPOC. ⁣

WHY 💡 A stripped down Labor & Delivery unit means fewer doctors to treat pregnant women, resulting in South LA’s women being forced to deliver further away from home. Research shows that women have worse maternal health outcomes when they live further away from care and that non-White women have worse maternal health outcomes when they are treated by providers of a different race. ⁣

HOW CAN YOU HELP? 💪 Contact our local elected officials today and urge them not to cut funding for MLK, Jr. Community Hospital. It’s easy and we’ve created a simple template that you can personalize and send at the link in profile. 📸

Posted • I am fundraising for this Black Family to be able to hire a Black Midwife they chose. Black families deserve the best of care and the best outcomes. Help me to change the shameful outcomes Black mothers and babies get in America. Let’s give this family a safe and loving birth experience! And a Black midwife deserves her full fee! No amount is too small. Let’s do this. Link in my bio. Please share !

Posted • URGENT SUPPORT NEEDED: Roots Community Birth Center in Minneapolis, owned by black midwife Rebecca Polston, is in need of urgent support. Rebecca was forced to abandon her birth center due to the protest and fires near her business. Funds are needed to purchase hotel suites for clinic, delivery and postpartum support. There are only seven black-owned birth centers in the United States, please help keep this one open.

MAKE A CASH DONATION: Venmo

@ Minneapolis, Minnesota

Celebrating the birth of all mothers today. The path into motherhood is different for everyone. I honor your journey and respect the courage, intention, and love this transformation demands. I see you. I celebrate you ✨ ⠀
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Posted • We are up and running!!!!!!!!
9a-9p (will add hours if needed)
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Would love and appreciate any and all shares/likes/promotions etc.
We are the village.
We are the midwives. Each one of us.
We are the healers.
We are the witnesses.
We are the guerrilleras.
We are here and we’re ready to burn it down with you.
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