Lactation counselors are critical people in the mission to nurture, support and protect families on their infant feeding journeys. Systemic and medical racism permeate the US medical system, which doesn’t always value keeping babies and birthing parents together, doesn’t hire enough lactation professionals on our hospital floors to support all the parents who recover there, often includes lactation support or lack thereof steeped in medical and systemic racism and doesn’t have mandated postpartum home care, lactation counselors are the bridge to help people succeed at the basics of feeding their infants.

With birthing centers closing and many midwives being denied access to malpractice insurance, fewer options are available for physiological birth. There is hope that midwife led birthing centers may be opened in the future, but rules and regulations still need to be signed first.

This past weekend, my social media blew up with a notice from a midwife that NYC’s Mt. Sinai West Birthing Center is slated to close at the end of the year. This is devastating to the NYC community because people in labor deserve safe and healthy birthing options.

Doula trainings are becoming increasingly popular and not all of the women taking them plan to become doulas. Doulas as modern professionals are bringing back the concept of continuous support during labor that women always had in the past.

Hello! My name is Catalina and I have just completed my first DONA Doula Training Workshop in NYC with Debra Pascali-Bonaro and am on my way to become a DONA International Certified Birth Doula!