BJP NYC 09: A Sisterly Approach to Doula Care in NYC with Nicole Jean Baptiste

09/02/20 • 106 min

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:

Donate to Bx (Re)Birth and Progress Collective via PayPal and through their registry on Target
Follow Nicole and Bx (Re)Birth and Progress on Instagram
Birth Centers in NYC: Brooklyn Birthing Center, Jazz Birthing Center (sister center of the Brooklyn Birthing Center), and the Birthing Center of New York
To learn more about Amber Rose Isaac and her death, you can read this article in The Guardian

Questions to Consider After the Episode:

How can our City make doulas more accessible to people who want them and need them?
How can healthcare institutions and healthcare providers follow the lead of their patients and clients?

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.

Support the show

References During the Episode:

Donate to Bx (Re)Birth and Progress Collective via PayPal and through their registry on Target
Follow Nicole and Bx (Re)Birth and Progress on Instagram
Birth Centers in NYC: Brooklyn Birthing Center, Jazz Birthing Center (sister center of the Brooklyn Birthing Center), and the Birthing Center of New York
To learn more about Amber Rose Isaac and her death, you can read this article in The Guardian

Questions to Consider After the Episode:

How can our City make doulas more accessible to people who want them and need them?
How can healthcare institutions and healthcare providers follow the lead of their patients and clients?

Support the show

Previous Episode

BJP NYC 08: How Female Genital Mutilation & Cutting Impacts the Reproductive Health of New Yorkers with Natasha Johnson

Season 1 Episode 8 features an interview with Natasha Johnson: activist, artist, advocate, academic, attorney, yoga instructor and the founder of Globalizing Gender. In this week’s episode we discuss female genital mutilation and cutting - what it is, why and how it happens, how it impacts sexual and reproductive health (including pregnancy and childbirth), and how it shows up in New York City.
Natasha Johnson’s Bio:
Natasha has been an educator for 21 years and an attorney for 15 years. In 2015 she founded Globalizing Gender (GG) where she educates, prevents, and reforms Gender-Based Violence (GBV) through capacity building, rule of law, governance, and awareness. Natasha organized NYC’s inaugural march to end FGM/C in the United States and is currently co-authoring NYC’s first holistic FGM/C legislation. As an artist she curates public forums and creates editorial-styled work that critiques and raises awareness of GBV. Natasha earned her Juris Doctorate from CUNY School of Law, her yoga certification from Breathe for Change, and her Bachelor’s Degree from Columbia University.

References During the Episode:

Questions to Consider After the Episode:

Let's continue to investigate the many ways that people navigate and experience their health. What are other practices - whether they be cultural, religious, or personal - that impact how people experience their sexual and reproductive health?
Let's consider the many ways that law enforcement permeates our society - especially social services. How do we ensure that folks who experience gender based violence are taken care of when/if we abolish police?

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Next Episode

BJP NYC 10: How the Child Welfare System Undermines Pregnant People and Families with Erin Miles Cloud

Season 1 Episode 10 features an interview with Erin Miles Cloud: a lawyer and a mother, as well as the Co-Director and Co-Founder of Movement for Family Power. In this week’s episode we do a deep dive into the womb to foster care pipeline and the ways in which hospitals and social workers are complicit in criminalizing poor parents and people who use drugs. We get into the relationship between the police department and child welfare services, and how the child welfare system incentivizes the separation of families.
Announcement:
Share your story on the Birth Justice Podcast NYC! Fill out this form and we’ll be in touch to learn more about you and your experience(s).
Erin Miles Cloud’s Bio:
Erin Miles Cloud is the co-director/co-founder of Movement for Family Power, and a former family defense public defender. She is Baltimore born, and Bronx living. She is Black mother of two beautiful children.

References During the Episode:

Movement for Family Power’s Ground Zero Report
Follow Movement for Family Power on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
BBC documentary “Guinea Pig Kids: ARV Babies in New York City”

Questions to Consider After the Episode:

How can we better support pregnant people and parents who are poor? Who use drugs and substances?
When we consider abolition of police, we need to also consider all of the ways that police are embedded in social welfare programs. And how social welfare programs mimic the values and behaviors of police.

Support the show