Meet Our Doulas: Akemi Tsuru

Akemi is the person to go to for your tens unit rental, spinning babies, rebozo, acupressure, aromatherapy, belly binding, and Spanish and Portuguese language services (including childbirth education in English and Spanish).

She writes, “I'm a certified birth doula based in Baltimore City, as a LatinAsian I'm aware of how your cultural background can help you see the world in many different ways and I truly enjoy that.

“Always love to connect with my clients (especially migrant and multicultural families) to know how to adapt my experience for each one of them depending on their specific needs. I'm trained in Spinning babies, Rebozo and Mexican belly binding, aromatherapy and acupressure to complement my hands-on comfort measures, I'm fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, and speak basic French.

“My own experience having 2 natural births taught me how important the role of a support person is, and that made me want to switch career paths in order to serve other birthing people and help how they experience their journey, especially when you're not giving birth in your own country or in your own language.

“Cooking is my zen zone, sharing food with my family and friends is my happy place.”

Find her online at https://doulamatch.net/profile/22966/akemi-tsuru-cd-dona

Support our work HERE

#supportdoulas2024

Meet Our Doulas: Moss Froom

Moss Froom (they/them) is a full-spectrum birth worker who is available for fertility support, childbirth education, pregnancy and birth support, postpartum support, and abortion and loss support.

Moss works with all types of families and states that they “were drawn into this work to support my trans and queer community.” Find more information about Moss on their website: www.mossthedoula.com or on Instagram @mossthedoula.

Support our work HERE

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Meet Our Doulas: Larice Johnson

We’re excited to kick off our fundraising campaign by highlighting not only one of our birth and postpartum doulas, but our current Baltimore Doula Project Secretary—Larice Johnson (she/her)!

msha.ke/lovejohnsondoulaservices

@laricejohnsondoula

“My name is Larice Johnson, I am a birth and postpartum doula in Baltimore. I have two beautiful girls who are the driving source of my passion for birthwork and helping mothers. I look forward to bringing my passion for fact-based information and my nurturing heart to support and love my family.”

Support our work HERE

#supportdoulas2024

Support Doulas 2024

Baltimore Doula Project would not be who we are without the doulas we work with nor the individual stories from our clients that fuel our work. We are kicking off a fundraising campaign where YOUR donation will be matched. Over the next few weeks come join us here as we learn more about the people who make BDP who we are as we try to raise money to continue doing our work for the greater Baltimore community.

Support our work HERE

#supportdoulas2024

BDP Prison Support: What do we do?

The Baltimore Doula Project has been providing doula services at the Maryland Correctional Institute for Women (MCIW) since 2016, but we experienced a pause in programming from 2020 until May 2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As you can see from our recent blog posts we are excited be able to work at MCIW again and are eager to share our work with our supporters. Since June 2023, when we were able to be back in person at MCIW, to October 2023, we have:

• Spent an average of one hour and 56 minutes at each doula session for a cumulative 23 hours and 20 minutes

• Served eight unique clients, including seven who were currently pregnant and one postpartum client

• Provided a welcoming space where no one who is eligible for the program and invited to attend has declined to do so

• Seen an average of three clients per meeting

• Donated a multitude of lactation supplies including a deep freezer for milk storage, ten breast pumps, two boxes of milk storage bags, and one box of nursing pads

• Provided a breast pump to all clients who have expressed interest in pumping milk (a total of five clients)

• Donated $3,000 worth of infant care supplies between June and October 2023, not including breast pumps

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Thank you to the Mitzvah Fund!

Thank you to the Baltimore Community Foundation Mitzvah Fund for Good Deeds!

We are a fully volunteer-run operation. Our ability to do our work depends on support from foundations dedicated to improving the Baltimore community as well as individual donors. We recently were awarded a grant from the BCF Mitzvah Fund in order to provide infant supplies to our clients at the Maryland Correctional Institute for Women (MCIW).

We also know that for pregnant people, a baby registry can be an important part of the preparation for baby. Within our MCIW doula program, we have six clients, three are in their third trimester, two recently gave birth, and one is in the second trimester. Our baby registry campaign on behalf of these clients allows us to directly send infant care supplies to the infants’ caregivers.

Support our work here!