FORT MYERS, Fla. – After having three boys, Janai Hernandez was thrilled to learn she would have a baby girl.
Before she knew about her pregnancy in 2019, she had already tapped one woman to be part of her team.
“I teased her in her inbox and I was like, ‘When I have my next baby, I’m going to reach out to you to be my doula,’” Hernandez said. “And she’s like okay! And a few months later I was like ‘Okay I’m actually pregnant, and I need you to go through this journey with me.’”
Her doula, Terri Mosely, knew firsthand what that journey could bring. Mosely is a mom of two children herself and said she could’ve used extra support during her second pregnancy.
“Yes I had nurses, I had midwives, but I knew I needed someone else,” she said. “A little extra help.”
She started researching how to become a doula after having her second baby. It’s a role that’s becoming more popular with Black moms.
“It’s emotional support,” Mosely said. “Having a doula there, you have someone there that understands the pain that you’re going through because a lot of it is pain management.”
Doulas work hand in hand with midwives and doctors to help deliver babies. The practice goes back centuries. In Fort Myers, it started with May Ola Ponder Wells Diggs. She was the city’s first Black midwife and delivered thousands of babies, many in her own home.
“In the beginning, she was going to the families but then she set up residence, started delivering babies at her home,” Charles Barnes of the Lee County Black History Society said. “I actually remember my father taking my mother there for my younger sister. I remember as a little boy going there with my mom and going back there for my mom and she had a baby in her arms.”
At the time, Black moms couldn’t go to the hospital to give birth. Now they have options, but some still rely on midwives and doulas for healthy births.
Black moms in the United States are three times more likely than white moms to die from pre- or post-pregnancy-related issues. Many of those deaths happen after the baby is born.
“I feel like as a Black woman, I feel like we are, not less hurt, but we’re more prone to going through pregnancy without having any medication or anything of that nature,” Hernandez said. “And not really being attended to. I did not know how high the rate was for women being so close to death during pregnancy. And it kind of scared me, which is what drove me… to get a doula, because I really wanted somebody there with me besides my husband to hold my hand through this entire thing. Especially another woman that’s with me and already had children.”
Mosley said these moms need someone in their corner.
“A lot of times, moms don’t have anyone to stand for them and say ‘No I think this isn’t right, I think my blood pressure’s too high, I can’t walk right now, something’s not right with my feet.’ Or ‘Something seems wrong with my baby. Can you just double-check to make sure that they’re breathing okay?’ They’re not being advocated for at the hospitals,” Mosley said. “There’s things that moms may ask for that sometimes get looked over.’”
“I came across so many stories where Black women are, they pass away during labor and delivery,” Hernandez said. “Because they’re not, something is going wrong, and they have no idea that they’re having this issue with hemorrhaging, hypertension, things like that.”
“There’s got to be a fight to make that less than what it is now,” Barnes said of the maternal mortality rate. “Because that rate is too high with the technology and the kind of health system that we have in this country. That number needs to be looked at.”
Having that extra teammate can save lives during and after birth.
“Even after I had my baby, she came in, she made sure everything was good with my daughter,” Hernandez said. “She held her. She still watches her grow to this day. We always talk about it, she’s on my social media, so she knows ‘That is one of my babies that I helped come into this world.’”
Having a team that supports a mother’s health needs just as much as the baby’s helps moms feel more safe and confident.
“I would do it all over again just to have her,” Hernandez said of Mosley. “I think more women should have doulas because it makes a huge difference. I could not stress that enough. She was there the whole step of the way. It made a huge difference, and it made me feel so much better.”
“Sometimes we have to take off the shield,” Mosley said. “Sometimes we have to take off our superwoman cape and say ‘I need help.’”
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