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

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April 11 is International Day for Maternal Health and Rights

April 11 is International Day for Maternal Health and Rights where the focus is on every person’s right to respectful, quality, safe, and comprehensive maternal health care. According to the World Health Organization’s Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health, globally, 800 women die each day from preventable causes due to pregnancy and childbirth with the vast majority of these women in low- and middle-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. In order to make progress, we need to acknowledge the human rights necessary to improve maternal health outcomes and prevent maternal deaths.

The Wilson Center identifies five key human rights to aid in this goal:

• The Right to Survive Childbirth

Approximately 287,000 women die due to pregnancy-related causes across the globe with most of these being preventable. The leading causes of maternal death are hemorrhage, infection, pre-eclampsia, and complications from delivery. These preventable deaths can be attributed to shortfalls in health care systems.

• The Right to High Quality Care

Respectful maternity care is a core human right for pregnant people. It includes right to information, informed consent, and respectful care.

• The Right to Equity and Non-Discrimination

Racism is a key drier of disparities in maternal health outcomes. In the United States, Black pregnant people are 3-4 times more likely to die in childbirth than white women (shoutout to Black Maternal Health Week—more to follow!). Internationally, people belonging to racial and ethnic minority groups report discrimination within the health system, systemic biases based on misinformation, and structural barriers to receiving high-quality care.

• The Right to Government Accountability

Maternal health is essential to the health of communities. Governments have a responsibility to ensure the health and well-being of it’s residents, especially maternal health.

• The Right to Family Planning and Contraception

Across low- and middle-income countries, about 218 million women are sexually active and report either not wanting more children or wanting to delay childbirth, but are not using any method of contraception. This leads to unintended pregnancies, further contributing to maternal mortality and morbidity. Increasing contraception and family planning access promotes the right to education and information, and the right to decide the number and spacing of children.

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