Amadoma Bediako is a retired grade school teacher. But she's still dispensing plenty of information - these days to pregnant women.The most important thing is healthy mommy, healthy baby.On this day in early August, Bediako was visiting Jessyca Marshall, then seven and a half months pregnant, at her home in Brooklyn.They discuss issues like pre-natal health and a birth-plan.If you can relax and go into this, you're not so afraid you're not so tense because if you're tight and you're tense and you're worried, it slows it down...Bediako isn't a doctor or a midwife, she's what's known as a doula.That's ancient Greek for "a woman who serves." doulas support pregnant women before, during and after childbirth.Being a first time mother― I really wanted to take advantage of all the information that I could.And I know that doulas typically are very supportive of mothers' birth plans. So I wanted a doula that was supportive of me having a natural birth.The doula serves the woman. We don't work for the hospital. We don't work for the birthing center.We don't work for the midwife. We work for the woman. And we're there for her.The service is provided ― for free ― through a program backed by New York City's Department of Health.It's called the "By My Side Birth Support Program" and it's aimed at women living in low-income, largely African-American neighborhoods in Brooklyn...where there are high infant and maternal mortality rates.According to the Centers for Disease Control's latest statistics,
