Doulas and midwives aren't necessarily the crunchy granola hippies you might think they are. They also don't need to be female. We invited expert and certified doula Dr. Ashley Greenwald to talk to us about what doulas are and why every person preparing to a birth should have a doula around.

Recommendations:
Salena: "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander (https://newjimcrow.com/) and "Even the Rat Was White."
Abraham: "The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window" (https://www.netflix.com/title/81305952)

Sources and Links
- National Center for Health Statistics (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/births.htm)
- Teaching History (https://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24097)
- History of US/North American Hospitals (https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b3d0a51c3c16a31624ce3f9/t/5d9a482afc89f51722a1413d/1570392110473/A+Brief+History+of+Hospitals+in+America+Revised.pdf)
- History of Midwives (https://www.registerednursing.org/articles/history-midwifery/)
- Britannica: Midwifery (https://www.britannica.com/science/midwifery)
- Midwives Act of 1902 (Britain/UK; https://navigator.health.org.uk/theme/midwives-act-1902)
- The Making of a Male Midwife BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-41426691)
- Why was it called the Spanish Flu? (https://www.history.com/news/why-was-it-called-the-spanish-flu)
- The High cost of having a baby in America- The Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/01/how-much-does-it-cost-have-baby-us/604519/)
- American Action Forum (Maternal Mortality in The United States; https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/maternal-mortality-in-the-united-states/)

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