All About One Birth

The Mission

One Birth helps to create healthy birthing communities for Somali families by supporting them emotionally, physically and spiritually throughout pregnancy, birth and post-partum. One Birth provides education, empowering values and advocacy for Somali women while eliminating cultural barriers and working to foster the growth of community doulas. We believe birthing choices are crucial to healthy child-parent attachments leading to a healthy foundation for life.

*This is a pilot program beginning in the Somali community, with the intent to grow to other communities

A New Solution

One Birth has been created to address the disparities of disadvantaged women’s access to social and emotional support throughout pregnancy and birth. The primary way of doing this is by utilizing the services of a growing group of paraprofessionals or doulas. The word doula is derived from ancient Greek language to describe a woman who assists in childbirth. A doula’s role is to provide emotional and educational support to women and families throughout birth, thus supporting a healthy parent-child relationship. This focus provides the space for early child-parent attachments leading to a stronger bond and an increase in protective factors. These stronger attachments ultimately create a healthy foundation for health, both emotionally and physically, relationship building and academic achievement. More broadly, a doula is a community health worker who provides skilled and intimate continuity of care throughout childbearing year (Low, Moffat & Brennan, 2006). Doulas also provide post-partum care and education helping women transition from pregnancy to childhood. Doulas do not provide medical care or perform clinical tasks.

Birthing Philosophy

One Birth believes that birthing is an art that needs to be preserved. Today's fast moving society has vastly shifted the way birthing is approached. Most births are seen within a disease model, rather than womenkind's greatest gift to the earth. All women's bodies inherently know how to birth. At One Birth, we allow the woman and her partner to guide their birthing experience. They are the ones that know themselves best and the needs that will need to be met to have a healthy birthing experience. One Birth is merely there to help support and witness their beautiful moment of life.