Birth, Death and Doulas

What are the benefits of offering postpartum doula training to people experiencing incarceration? In this episode of Birth, Death, and Doulas, host Anne Kathryn Rice is joined by Alex White (Hour Children), Nubia Earth-Martin (Birth from the Earth), and Jen Chandlee (Luminous Postpartum Doula Training). Together, they discuss the postpartum doula training program for women experiencing incarcerati...

Director Capucine Salvi-Offer and Producers Tony Tehle and Mara Kikuchi give us a peak inside the creative process behind the making of the feature length documentary film "Through the Eyes of a Death Doula." The filmmakers were honored to be invited to document the sacred final moments of Tari Esposito, a terminally ill patient who decided to end her life by Medical Aid in Dying (MAID), a process...

Are birth and death more similar than we think? Is grief present when a woman brings forth new life, and rebirth encompassed in living through loss? Regina Kelly experienced a life-altering, transformative loss very early in her life: when she was just eight years old, her mother died unexpectedly. Though this experience rocked her world, it also birthed her desire to walk with others through the...

What do Western countries have to learn about birth from cultures that experience devastatingly high rates of infant mortality? Content warning: extensive discussion of infant loss Charlotte Brielle has worked in countries including Tanzania, South Africa, and Ecuador, where she has encountered tragically high rates of infant mortality due to lack of resources. Yet, she believes that the West has...

How can death doulas pick up the “compassion pieces” often dropped by the conventional medical system when a loved one is dying, or has died?  In the first episode of Birth, Death, and Doulas, host Anne Kathryn Rice interviews Sheila Burke about how the death of her husband, Shane, from an aggressive form of lung cancer began her journey to becoming a death doula. Sheila came to understand how sac...