Today we’d like to introduce you to Quanisha McGruder, Vice President of the San Antonio Black Doula Collective. She and their team share their story with us below:
The San Antonio Black Doula Collective started from the heart of Alexis Sabbs and Natasha Sobers. Alexis moved to San Antonio and was looking for more Black doulas to connect with and form her own village. It proved a harder search than she anticipated. After awhile she was connected to who she thought was the only Black doula, Natasha Sobers. They met, talked, clicked and soon after Natasha became a lighthouse to a few more Black doulas. A small network started to form with the few connections made. It seemed like everyday a few more doulas were added when Alexis would run across them. When the group started to fill up Alexis and Natasha came up with the idea to start a group connection so the Black communities would know that Black doulas exist; the collective started to form.
Now we have more than ten Black doulas with a similar mission: to provide support, representation, and guidance for Black birthing people and mothers who right now in the United States have the highest maternal and infant mortality rate. This similarity transformed into a more professional group and is now headed towards becoming a non-profit organization.
Our board members are:
Natasha Sobers President. Founder
Alexis Sabbs Co-Founder
Quanisha McGruder Vice President
DeAnna Ernestine Treasurer
Happy Megie Education Lead
Asia Umm Sufyann Thomas Community relations
“We are past just repeating the stats of the Black maternal and infant mortality rates, we want to provide a solution” Natasha Sobers. President of SA Black Doula Collective.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a very smooth road. Through reflection, we have come across some struggles. One struggle is finding the time and balancing our on-call, emotionally driven doula work with our own clients, other full-time jobs, and skills with our partnerships and community work.
We realized this year that it can lead to burnout and we have all made changes to accommodate this light of awareness. The second struggle is we are starting from scratch about doulas to the Black communities here and within our partnerships. Within this struggle has been a push for a lot more basic education on what doulas are, what do we do, how we differ from midwives/doctors, and what is our value.
Also bringing to the San Antonio leaders that there are problems in how the medical system is caring for Black women, people, and families during a vulnerable time like labor that is leading to unfortunate deaths. Texas is in the top ten of the USA states for the highest maternal and infant mortality rate.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We are the San Antonio Black Doula Collective (S.A.B.D.C.), a sisterhood of doulas with individual businesses who are collaborating to bring about much-needed change, representation, and support for Black families during their reproductive period.
We do this by raising awareness within San Antonio, hosting educational events/webinars, spotlighting Black doulas, collaborating with other different organizations that want to genuinely support Black families, and doing activism work. We specialize in the full spectrum reproductive period of a Black family’s fertility, birth, postpartum, and loss.
We specialize in the full spectrum reproductive period of Black families which covers fertility, birth, postpartum and loss. What sets us apart is that we are soon to be the first non-profit organization that focuses on Black families’ maternal and infant mortality rates and finding doulas support in San Antonio. What we want other readers to know is that we are fighting for a change in the medical system that requires help from the San Antonio community and we appreciate every single shout out, donation, and email that comes through.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
One of the important lessons that we have learned along our journey is that we don’t have to do all the things, by centering and zoning down onto a few events, partnerships, etc. we can create quality content and *generous support for the Black community.
Contact Info:
- Email: sablackdoulacollective@gmaill.com
- Website: sablackdoulacollective.com
- Instagram: @sablackdoulacollective
- Facebook: sablackdoulacollective
