<
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/climate-doula-pregnancy-babies-hurricanes-flooding-extreme-heat/>
"In the days leading up to Hurricane Irma’s landfall in September 2017, Esther
Louis made preparations to flee Florida with her husband and four children. The
Category 4 Hurricane was expected to hit the Florida Keys and make its way up
the state, posing a risk to millions of residents. One of those residents was a
client of Louis’ who was nine months pregnant and living in a home that the
Miami-based doula feared was in too poor of condition to withstand the storm.
As a doula, Louis was trained to provide holistic care to her client,
anticipating all the factors that may affect her health. She worried about how
the stress of an impending hurricane and evacuation could impact her client’s
pregnancy. So she offered to escort her client and her family toward Georgia,
where Louis was headed and where her client had relatives.
The caravan of two families departed together, inching their way in evacuation
traffic to the Georgia border. What would have been an eight hour drive took 24
hours. “It was stressful,” Louis said. Her client started to experience Braxton
Hicks contractions, which can be caused by stress. At times they would switch
drivers so she could provide emotional support to her client, who was worried
about all that could go wrong on the drive. “Sometimes people go to the worst
possible outcome but I’m like, ‘We’re going to get there, OK? We’re going to
work it out.’”
The experience was one of many instances in Louis’ career where the worsening
climate crisis had complicated a client’s birthing journey. She realized that
if doulas like herself had proper training on how to communicate the risks of
hurricane season, flooding and even extreme heat to their clients, they would
be better prepared in the event of a disaster like Irma.
They would also be filling an important information gap that could protect
pregnancies, particularly for Black people, who have a higher climate risk and
higher maternal mortality rates.
Over the past decade, a growing body of research has linked environmental
threats like extreme heat and wildfire smoke to an uptick in stillbirths,
premature births and low-birth weights. These factors also cause health
problems for pregnant people, including an association with developing
preeclampsia, a high blood pressure condition that can be deadly. More
recently, studies have linked climate-related disasters with higher rates of
maternal mental health issues like postpartum depression.
So in 2024, after years of providing some of this training herself to doulas in
the Miami-Dade area, Louis partnered with Dr. Cheryl Holder, cofounder of
Florida Clinicians for Climate Action, a nonprofit that seeks to teach health
professionals how to incorporate climate change into their work. They won a
grant that would help them develop a curriculum and training known as the Doula
C-Hot program, to teach doulas how to assess the climate risk of their clients
and help them better prepare for future climate threats. If the pilot is
successful, it could serve as a blueprint for how to train doulas across the
country as climate educators."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
