Meet Your ProDoula

Background/Experience that you think is beneficial to Doula work: Rachel is a certified labor doula, VBAC specialist, and postpartum & infant care doula, ready to support you throughout your pregnancy, labor, birth, and adjustment to having a new baby, practicing since 2020. I own and run Eleison Doula Services LLC and also work as a contract doula for BirthWell Partners Community Doula Program in Birmingham, Alabama. In addition to being a doula, I am a mother of four (teenagers and grown children) and I teach public health at Samford University. Even though most of my children have moved out, we still have a busy household with five cats and six chickens! I am proud to be certified by ProDoula, a professional doula organization that maintains high professional standards of providing unbiased, nonjudgmental support for all birthing clients.

What led you to become a Doula?: I came to this career combination by a winding pathway; I suppose many of us did. I started college as a pre-med but decided I didn't want the lifestyle demanded of a physician. I fell in love with an elective course I took on "Anthropology and Public Health," even though I hadn't previously known about either of these fields. Learning about different cultures fascinated me, and applying that knowledge to improving health opportunities for the population gave me a sense of purpose for my academic studies. Then I got married, started having babies, and decided to start a graduate program in anthropology. I got to conduct research on parents' vaccine decision-making. I was young then, so I had the energy to be a Wonder Woman (at least sometimes). After having children of my own, I loved working with parents and was fascinated by the invaluable support I had received from many community and hospital midwives. Several times I nearly quit to study midwifery, but I could never figure out how to make the required clinical shifts, at hospitals in three different cities, work with my responsibilities as a single mom. When an opportunity to apply for a public health professor job aligned with the need to bring my children back closer to our extended families in America, I jumped with both feet. Now I could work toward instilling a love of population health and cultural awareness in a new generation of health professionals. I could engage with my new community of Birmingham, Alabama. I could dive into topics like maternal-child health and the disparities surrounding it. But I still wished that I had a hands-on way to do something, not just talk about it. When Covid hit us in 2020 we spent the spring and summer working from home, and I had some time to explore options I hadn't been able to before. I signed up for a doula training with BirthWell Partners Community Doula Program. In my training, I saw how structural factors in our city were influencing birth outcomes and maternal-child health, and I met many wonderful people from my community who were working to support people giving birth and address these issues. Then I began serving clients and attending births myself. Wow. How different it felt providing hands-on care (literally, as in spending hours offering a hip squeeze or popping a new heat pack for each contraction), compared with the reading and talking that I was used to in my other job! I loved it, and decided to cross-certify with ProDoula so that I could build my professional identity as a doula and support even more people. I am proud to now be a ProDoula-certified labor doula, VBAC specialist, and postpartum & infant care doula.

What are some positive comments made about you by other people?:

“She was my doula and she was absolutely amazing. Thanks Rachel and if I was to do it over again I would most definitely choose her”
“My doula made my life so much better during labor an I was just grateful for the experience”
“There was not a single thing that Rachel did what was not helpful. Everything she shared and did helped beyond measure.”

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