ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Every year birthing experts celebrate World Doula Week from March 22 through March 28. This year in the Tampa Bay area, the week means a lot more for the work being done there.

Several programs, including Healthy Start Pinellas, are working to make sure every mother to be who wants a doula has access to one.

The option was especially important for first-time mothers like Alena Rose.

“I didn’t know what to do because this was my first kid,” she said. “I had never even held a baby before this. So I knew the county offered some great programs and Pinellas Healthy Start, I reached out to them and they helped me with everything. I didn’t even know how to change a diaper,” she said.

So she asked for help in the form of a doula. “I got put on the waiting list, maybe in like September, and I didn’t really get matched up until a week before my delivery, Feb. 1,” she said.

But she didn’t meet her doula until the day she gave birth, which isn’t the normal process. Thankfully for Rose, it all worked out.

“It was like we had known her for years. She was amazing,” she said. “There were a few times where you’re really in pain and it’s very easy to say yes to something and just get it over and done with, and I wanted to have a natural birth, and I was very adamant on that. But towards the end I just, it was a mental game, I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out for. So that’s where the doula steps in.”

And if you see Rose, her daughter Penelope, and her doula, Tami Mor, it’s hard to believe they haven’t known each other for at least nine months.

“The doula work, my work is to be there for the woman each moment. Each moment all of the birth,” Mor said. “Birth for all of my 17 years of experience is always, always very positive, very loving, very good. Even if it was hard and it was so painful. But it was good. It was wonderful.”

That wonderful experience will be felt by even more mothers and available long before their due date thanks to new grant money. The funding provided to Healthy Start Pinellas will pay to train more doulas and minimize that wait list.

“We just received the BayCare grant. It was half a million dollars — $500,000, which we’re super excited about. That money is gonna help a lot of mothers, plus it’s going to provide the resources and everything our doulas need and it’s just taking a big relief off of us,” said Healthy Start Pinellas Program Assistant Toni Jackson.

She said this money will allow them to focus on other needs for mothers. It will also allow Healthy Start Pinellas to focus more on the needs of mom and baby with programs like the First One Thousand Days. The program makes sure mothers are provided with information and resources to reduce those infant death rates within the first one thousand days of birth.

In the Bay area, the infant mortality rates in 2021 were significantly higher in Hillsborough County than the rest of the state, with Black babies dying at the highest rates, according to the Florida Department of Health.

Birthing experts say more doulas could help reduce those numbers.

“I always thought a doula was the one that catches the baby,” Jackson said. “A doula is someone who sits there with you, in your home, and helps you birth your child. And I feel like a lot of us think that’s what it is.

“And not only do we think that’s what it is, we think you have to have a lot of money to have that. So, what we’re doing is we’re going out into the neighborhoods and getting them the knowledge and education that, that’s not what a doula is.”

Through programs like Healthy Start Pinellas, moms having money to pay for these potentially lifesaving services is the last thing they want them to worry about.

It lightens the load for moms like Rose to focus on being the best new mom she can be to baby Penelope.

Healthy Start Pinellas was also recently received a $50,000 Challenge Grant from the Parents As Teachers National Center. The investment aims to reduce maternal and infant mortality of at-risk, substance use disorder by covering the cost to provide 20 new doulas.

“I’m particularly glad for this doula funding. To know that we can reach more moms to have those positive birth outcomes. Because delivering alone is scary, particularly for someone who had a history of substance use. That reminder of you’re strong enough to do this, you’re good enough, you deserve everything that’s coming, is an extra special moment,” said Healthy Start Pinellas Community Development Coordinator Julia Sharp.