Mother-turned-doula & holistic health advocate
Kim is a mother of five girls whose ages range from 9-31, and hails from Vienna, Virginia. Kim comes from a large, tight-knit family. Kim’s grandmother was one of 12 kids, and was the first Black woman to buy property in Fairfax County. Kim’s great-great grandmother had secured the land when she was freed from her slave owner, and the land was passed down and divided among the family. To this day, Kim’s siblings, aunts, uncles, and family all live on this historic street in Vienna. Kim is proud to be the descendant of such courageous women, and has learned the truth in the saying, “it takes a village.”
With her fifth pregnancy came her worst experience. By this point, Kim was old enough to be considered advanced maternal age, which is 35 in the US, putting her in the high risk category. Once again, the baby was showing signs of anemia, and so Kim was sent to a different specialist facility for high risk care. Kim was given a light sedative to help calm her nerves before the blood transfusion, and the first procedure went fine. She returned to the facility a week later for her second procedure, at 30 weeks. A different doctor was to do this week’s transfusion. She remembers feeling very anxious about the procedure, but when she asked for the same sedative that had calmed her down the week before, the doctor denied it to her, saying “you’ll be fine, we do hundreds of these.”
The blood transfusion involves putting the baby to sleep in the womb so it will stay still for the procedure. The second time around, Kim’s baby wouldn’t stay still long enough to put the baby to sleep. The doctor tried for an hour and grew increasingly frustrated and flustered, which made Kim even more anxious. Finally, he got the huge needle into the umbilical cord, and told the nurse to push to start the blood transfusion. Suddenly there was a terrible silence. The umbilical cord had ruptured. Kim was shoved upright and told to drink something. The last thing she remembers is asking for her husband. She woke up a day and a half later, chained to the bed, with a tube down her throat.
Once Kim awoke, gaps in the story slowly got filled in. After her umbilical cord had ruptured, there had been an emergency C-section to deliver her baby, who was born at 3 pounds. Kim had come to after the C-section violently, which is why she was chained to the bed. To this Kim says, “well, I went down violently, thank you very much.” But as her husband’s voice woke her up from her haze, she remembers feeling so humiliated. “I woke up like a prisoner.”
“I have to wonder. How much of it was because I am a mother of color?”
In the NICU, Kim didn’t leave her daughter’s side. Most of the other mothers had to leave to go to work, and she observed their babies were only held twice a day by the nurses on their morning and evening rounds. She refused to leave, because she didn’t trust what would happen to her baby if she left. Finally, on top of it all, she developed pneumonia from infections that had occurred from taking the breathing tube in and out.
Her job had given her 8 weeks maternity leave, so she had to make the choice between keeping her job or leaving her infant daughter stuck in a place she didn’t trust. This shouldn’t be a choice that anyone has to make, and showed her how broken the US system is. She decided to quit her job so she could stay with her daughter in the NICU.
Kim’s violent and traumatic experiences with pregnancy encouraged her to become a doula and help other women have better experiences through guidance and support.
“I saw the maternal mortality rates for Black women, and couldn’t believe it. I thought to myself, that could have been me. I might have not come home to my other kids, who need me”
Before becoming a doula, Kim had worked in the corporate world while working as massage therapist on the side, specializing in postpartum massage. She became interested in birth work, and became a certified doula through a holistic agency. The classes focused on nutrition, birthing unassisted, birthing in medical centers, interventions, birth comfort measures, methods to induce labor, fertility, and much more.
Kim focuses on the mother after birth, and makes the mother’s mental and physical well-being her top priority. Too often, all of the attention is on the newborn and none on the mother, who is a patient too. Let’s focus less on the baby shower gifts, and more on the mother postpartum, Kim says. Because in reality, if you want a healthy, thriving newborn, the mother needs to be healthy. There are huge societal pressures on women, to lose all the pregnancy weight, to be perfect mothers, to breastfeed, to keep the house clean, to not miss a beat in their careers. Motherhood is a big deal, and should be treated as such. Many of Kim’s clients struggle with breastfeeding, because they are worried about getting rid of the pregnancy weight and so don’t consume the extra calories needed to support breastfeeding. There is pressure to maintain a facade of perfection postpartum, when in reality it is messy, exhausting, and difficult.
Kim works with new mothers to feed their bodies properly, which helps take off the mental load. She does overnight visits to help with sleep training, where she holds and bottle-feeds the baby, allowing the exhausted parents to get some rest. Kim works with her clients to establish healthy boundaries for friends and family. However, these services are expensive, and she wishes there was a way to make them more accessible so more women could benefit from them.
Her number one piece of advice for future mothers? Get to know yourself first. Focus on healing your body from the inside out (mentally, emotionally, and nutritionally). Reconnect with your elders and your community; don’t write off their intelligence and lived experience. Build your support team.
To pregnant Black women: Slow down. Dealing with the pressure of being a woman, compounded by being a Black woman, means there are so many stress factors to deal with. Step away from what society dictates, and focus on mind and body.
To providers: don’t get angry with us for asking questions. Focus on building a trusting relationship with us, and less on the number on scale. Give us the care we deserve.
Kim’s advice for future mothers is something we could all learn from.
Thank you, Kim