Season 1 Episode 9 features an interview with Nicole Jean Baptiste: a mother of two, a full spectrum community based doula, lactation counselor, yoga instructor, and oral historian. In this week’s episode we discuss Nicole’s journey into birthwork (which includes a bit about her own birth story) as well as the birth injustice she has witnessed in New York City as a doula and as an advocate. We also dive into doula work: from the importance of compensating doulas to valuing doulas as autonomous birthworkers. Nicole offers some sound suggestions and advice for what our City can do to better serve pregnant and parenting people, and folks of reproductive age.
Nicole Jean Baptiste’s Bio:
Of Southern American and Caribbean ancestry and based in the Bronx, New York, Nicole Jean Baptiste strives to center the borough and the Black experience in the birth and social justice activism in which she engages. Nicole is currently a Community Doula Consultant for the New York City Health Department’s COVID-19 Perinatal Taskforce. She is the founder of Sésé Doula Services and co-founder of the Bx (Re)Birth and Progress Collective.
References During the Episode:
Questions to Consider After the Episode:
Created and Hosted by Taja Lindley
Produced by Colored Girls Hustle
Music, Soundscape and Audio Engineering by Emma Alabaster
Support our work on Patreon or make a one-time payment via PayPal
For more information visit BirthJustice.nyc
This podcast is made possible, in part, by the Narrative Power Stipend - a grant funded by Forward Together for members of Echoing Ida.
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