{"id":71353,"date":"2025-03-10T14:17:29","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T21:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=71353"},"modified":"2025-03-10T14:17:29","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T21:17:29","slug":"fresno-doula-tackles-black-maternal-health-in-her-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=71353","title":{"rendered":"Fresno Doula Tackles Black Maternal Health in Her Community"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
By<\/span>Selen Ozturk<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/i>
\n
\n

With the Black maternal health crisis worsening, Shantay Davies-Balch is growing a rapid-response doula network across Fresno County.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"\"
Shantay Davies-Balch, winner of a $350,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation to tackle the Black maternal health crisis by training Black doulas throughout Fresno County, explains doula care fundamentals during a training session. (Courtesy: James Irvine Foundation)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

With the Black maternal health crisis worsening, Shantay Davies-Balch is growing a rapid-response doula network across Fresno County.<\/p>\n

The U.S. has the highest maternal death rate of any high-income country, despite a pandemic decline, with\u00a022.3 maternal deaths<\/a>\u00a0per 100,000 live births in 2022 \u2014 more than double and sometimes triple many other high-income countries.<\/p>\n

Black maternal deaths remain highest, at 49.5 deaths per 100,000 live births.<\/p>\n

Over 80%<\/a>\u00a0of maternal deaths are preventable.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter losing my mother to preventable breast cancer and enduring pre-term births despite taking every precaution, I felt the need to do something about this and advocate for Black maternal health in my community,\u201d said Davies-Balch, who grew up in Fresno and studied health care administration at Fresno Pacific University.<\/p>\n

In 2005, while working corporate roles in business, she trained as a birth assistant at local clinics and eventually became a doula \u2014 a trained professional providing physical, emotional and educational support to patients before, during and after childbirth.<\/p>\n

In 2017, after many years of helping mothers as a doula while raising her own children, Davies-Balch created Fresno\u2019s BLACK Wellness & Prosperity Center (BWPC), a Black maternal advocacy, research and doula training organization where she now works as CEO.<\/p>\n

Since launching a 125-hour training program through the BWPC project\u00a0Black Doula Network<\/a>\u00a0(BDN) in 2021, she has trained 10 doulas in Fresno, more than tripling the number of Black doulas working countywide \u2014 \u201cand our goal is 30 by the end of next year,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For these efforts, she received a $350,000 grant last month as part of the philanthropic\u00a0James Irvine Foundation Annual Leadership Awards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n