Several of our MCH students attended the 2021 American Public Health Association (APHA) conference, October 24-27, in-person or online. What follows is a post from one of the attendees.
By Brianna Betton, BA
During APHA, I was able to attend many insightful sessions and engage in conversations about the future of public health. One session in particular, titled Public Health Identity Crisis, left a lasting impact. One of the panelists, Jen Elder, spoke about how her passion for helping people who are homeless led to her work with health and human services. It challenged me to think about how my passion for Black maternal health led me to doula work.
It took me a long time to figure out where I felt like my place was in public health and this past semester, I’ve had to engage in critical reflection about my MCH journey. I thought my niche was doing qualitative research and that’s the kind of work I wanted to do after graduation. Whenever I would mention that I was a doula, people became sensationalized, and it took over the conversation. Ultimately, I didn’t want doula work to overshadow all of my research experience. Here I was on the precipice of a cutting-edge field in public health and I wanted to hide it. When Andrea Lowe said, “the ability to evolve is a skill,” I felt like I was hit with a lightning bolt. I realized that there were so many things about doula work that I can apply to the public health profession.
1. Being a doula has taught me to be more empathetic. Providing labor support has been the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life. I have the privilege of seeing birthing people at their most vulnerable which helped me develop patience and compassion because I have to continuously support them. This will help me work on projects where I may not see an immediate result and be able to continuously communicate with stakeholders throughout the process.
2. Being a doula has helped me see how public health theories are connected with lived experiences. Being an MPH student has made a lot of theoretical constructs seem abstract and disjointed from people’s lived experiences. As a doula, I’ve been able to understand constructs like the socio-ecological model and life course perspective from an entire new point of view.
3. Being a doula has enabled me to understand maternal health from the intersection of health equity, health communication, and health education. Public health is an interdisciplinary field and having the opportunity to gain skills in approaching maternal health from a variety of perspectives is very beneficial for a public health professional.
Public health is an interdisciplinary field and having the opportunity to gain skills in approaching maternal health from a variety of perspectives is very beneficial for a public health professional.
Before this session, I never stopped to think about how focusing on having a niche was impacting my ability to market myself during my job search. Once, I realized that I wasn’t required to have a public health niche; it helped me open myself to more professional opportunities. I have accepted a position as the Doula Onboarding and Technical Assistance Coordinator at the National Doula Network. I am really grateful to have found a job that combines my passion for improving maternal health outcomes and my experience as a birth doula!
Brianna Betton, BA, is a second-year MPH student studying maternal and child health. She plans to graduate in December 2021. In her free time, Brianna enjoys cooking, yoga, and going to church.
