- 6 days ago
As we celebrate 30 Years of Essence Fest, we ground ourselves in the theme of joy and honor Black women as the pillars of our communities. Don’t miss an enlightening conversation with Carol’s Daughter Founder Lisa Price and Mama Glow Founder Latham Thomas as they spotlight the transformative impact of the Love Delivered Initiative. This pioneering partnership is a testament to their dedication to improving Black maternal health. Come, be inspired, and learn more about how their work is birthing black joy!
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00:00on the dreams and victories of the goddesses who came before me i am box braids cornrows and curls
00:09i am yvonne's granddaughter candy's only daughter and now carol's daughter
00:16i am not just strong i am goddess strong
00:23how y'all doing out there y'all still hanging out i need a little more energy than that
00:33all right good well i hope everyone is having a wonderful day um it's been a very eventful day
00:40here at beauty con so we have another panel that we're moving on to um this is birthing black joy
00:47so this is an intimate conversation about black maternal health the future of it and this is
00:51sponsored by l'oreal so a brand that everybody knows right uh so as we celebrate 30 years of
00:57essence fest we ground ourselves in the theme of joy we honor black women the pillars of our community
01:03and champions of happiness let's get into this enlightening conversation with lisa price
01:09founder of carol's daughter and latham thomas founder of mama globe as they spotlight the
01:15transformative impact of the love delivered initiative but first allow me to introduce
01:19moderator miss tanaj ferguson taylor she is a brand strategist founder and ceo of black girls at
01:27target and director of marketing multicultural at l'oreal y'all give a round of applause give them
01:32some love
01:33hello everyone we are here for the birthing black joy conversation and i want to welcome our special
01:43guest for today your favorite lisa price founder of carol's daughter give her a warm welcome to the
01:50stage she is joined by your favorite world-renowned doula latham thomas of mama glow foundation give her a warm
02:00welcome thank you ladies so since 2021 mama glow foundation and carol's daughter has partnered on the love delivered
02:16initiative so today we're talking about all the success of this program and how these ladies are moving
02:21that for even more progress lisa can you talk about some of the impact of love delivered on you and
02:29actually let me share some context so so far love delivered has impacted 120 births there's been 120
02:38deliveries through this program and also this program has yes give a hand for that and even more striking
02:46this program has impacted over 8 million people through the doula programming this is education and
02:53support let's give that a round of applause so the stats are amazing but it's even more impactful to
03:00really bring it down those are big numbers we want to hear the stories that really tell us what impact we're
03:06having on the community so i want to ask these ladies lisa and latham to share some of the most striking
03:12stories of love delivered of families women that you've supported and that really keeps this program
03:17going because we know we're doing great work here lisa let's start with you well i i'm so grateful to be
03:24here and to be here with latham and with tanaj and all of you what latham and i have
03:33i believe successfully done is to raise the awareness around black maternal health and while there are
03:40statistics that are grim we choose not to solely focus on the grim statistics we want to focus on the
03:51fact that when you are going to give birth it is a joyful moment it is a happy moment and a proud moment
03:59and the work that carol's daughter helps mama glow do helps to make those experiences as beautiful as they
04:07can be and i remember when we first started i felt that if we impacted one birth that it was worth all of
04:17the work that we were doing to have one birth be beautiful and wonderful and fantastic and for it to
04:25be so many and to have so many doulas going out into the workforce to assist birthing people it's just
04:32amazing yeah thank you so much lisa and tanaj for opening up and really framing the conversation
04:41you know the doulas who are in community for those who don't know doulas are non-clinical professionals
04:47that offer emotional support physical support education advocacy tools and if you have a partner
04:53present they also help them get up to speed it's kind of like having a producer for your birth right
04:57and someone who's like a cheerleader for you and we thought it was important because lisa and i are
05:01cheerleaders for each other and so we came to this work thinking how can we make impact on you know in
05:08in terms of our community and the statistics that we were seeing and what happens inside of the program
05:14is not just the impact that we make on families but also when you see the sisterhood amongst the doula
05:20community and we have six major u.s cities including new orleans is a city that we serve and so if you are
05:26pregnant if you are looking for a doula support we can help you through this program um one of the
05:32things i think is really important though is is how people come together we have a mentorship program
05:37through love delivered where younger doulas are working with more experienced doulas to be able to
05:42serve community this is important as we think about how we're actually tackling the maternal health crisis
05:48in this country so beyond just birth it's also the workforce development piece that you mentioned as well
05:53yes yeah so one of the lisa alluded to this earlier the health statistics are striking black women are
06:02three times more likely to have pregnancy complications than white individuals so it's really important for
06:08us to recognize that but not to be afraid for so long the conversation has been fair based we hear that's
06:14that but we don't hear but what can we done what can be done about that how can we be empowered to change
06:19that narrative that's what love delivered is here for to really empower pregnant women birthing people
06:26to be able to take control and to have the support during their pregnancy so that it's more positive and
06:32it's better more success out of it this is what this program is all about so don't be afraid of those
06:39statistics it doesn't end there this is what this program is all about shifting that narrative so let's talk a little
06:45bit more about how the program specifically addresses these statistics we know the doulas are here to
06:51help with the experience around women talk about some of the education that's also happening through love
06:56delivered yeah i can start and then lisa can also fill in um you know one of the things we've been doing
07:02ever since covid when we're all inside it's amazing that we can be out here now right but before we were
07:08inside y'all we were on screens and what we did through the program was we realized people were at home and we
07:13could impact many people one of the conversations that we had with the carol's daughter team was you
07:18know how many people are you thinking about impacting i thought they were going to say like a hundred
07:21they're like no we want to affect a hundred million and we were like a hundred million um we i can't even
07:27count that far right but what happened was we were able to impact a hundred million people through the
07:32advocacy through the impact of the programs that were online we were able to reach thousands of people
07:38with the webinar series with the ig lives that we were doing and then with a training program
07:43which we're going to announce today that we also developed so it's it's about the education making
07:48it accessible we created a guide called birthing while black which was a prep guide that was 60 pages
07:54that walks you through um through a mobile um it's like a mobile uh not app but a mobile program really
08:01that you can um navigate to help you just move through your pregnancy process but also to feel
08:07confidence right and as you think about the choices that you're going to make to help you feel empowered
08:12and making those choices and ask the questions that will help you to get to those better birth
08:16outcomes like we were talking about so the education piece is critically important as we know because
08:21it helps you to also advocate better for yourselves right and you can't advocate and make great choices
08:26if you don't have information and lisa this program has been started since 2021 so we have
08:33three years of programming that's been here why did carol's daughter start this why has that been
08:38important for you to have this connection this partnership as your philanthropy i personally did
08:45not have the best birth experience with my two oldest children one who is 28 and one who's 26 so this
08:55was a lot of years ago i i didn't have a life-threatening situation but it wasn't as positive as it should
09:02have been and it has always been my passion with people who are in my family people who were on staff
09:11with me when they go through their birth process to try to give them as much information as possible
09:18let them know what they should be asking their health care professionals a lot of times we're afraid
09:24because we don't know and we're unsure and people don't give us information and we don't know that we
09:30have a voice and we have an authority in the space where i lucked out was i had a best friend who was
09:38a midwife in training we pretended she was my sister and she acted as my doula and then she brought
09:46someone to me who was a lactation doula who helped me be able to nurse my children after they were born
09:53so i successfully nursed one for three years and the second one for four years don't come for me they are
10:00amazing people they were never sick and i did all of that while i was making healthy hair butter and
10:06mimosa hair honey by the way for y'all period and you know you want women to have that empowering
10:15experience it is a remarkable thing that we do bringing life into the world but sometimes the
10:21birthing process literally puts us at the back burner as if we're not main players in in the situation
10:28given that advocacy so latham we talked about this before it's a common question and i think some
10:35folks might be wondering the same today doula midwife ob-gyn there's a lot of players when it comes to
10:42this talk to us about the role each one plays and how does mama glow fit into that as well yes so it's
10:48so important to understand the assembly of the care team right the care team is going to be the people
10:55who support you and they all play a different role and so we already talked about the role of
10:59the doula which is non-clinical in nature so that person's like your coach like your um your sidekick
11:05your cheerleader right and they're also making sure you have the educational tools you need as well as
11:09the advocacy tools you need to navigate the health care system um a midwife is a person that you can
11:15deliver with um in a hospital in a home birth setting or in a birth center right and so but they are
11:22trained specifically to work in out of hospital birth environments because midwifery is actually
11:27the oldest known profession and so all of us were born via midwives until sort of like the mid 1900s
11:34right so midwifery is one pathway then we have um ob-gyn so when you go in for your well woman care
11:43you typically see an ob-gyn right and lots of people usually work with that person when they become
11:48pregnant as well you have choices you can choose who your provider is it's really important because
11:54it's not like you know when you go get your hair done it's kind of like okay i like this person you
11:58have to be in love with your provider because they are assisting a very intimate process and so we
12:05advocate for people having not only the education but also feeling really connected to their providers
12:10and so the ob-gyn is there to perform high stakes um uh high stakes support right so what it might
12:17look like is in an emergency situation they're there to provide a clinical care that might include a
12:24surgical delivery um they're trained for that they're trained for emergent situations right midwifery care is
12:30for low impact and also low risk birth right and so everybody's not a candidate for every space so you
12:37really have to become educated on what works for you because what works for me or elisa or tanaj might
12:43not work for everyone else in the room so that is a critical piece in understanding who makes up the
12:48care team it's going to be individual for each person but also there's other people because how we
12:53got to birth was like in villages right so we had all kinds of village keepers who would be part of
12:58that process and so it might be an auntie who had twins who's going to help you because you have twins on
13:03the way it might be someone who can cook some food and have some gumbo on the stove while you're
13:07giving birth and make sure that you have some food when you come home it might mean having
13:12um someone who can do a lactation support like lisa was talking about or maybe even acupuncture
13:17or other kind of energy healing work but most importantly it's making sure that there's people
13:23who care about you that you also feel comfortable with that you can share information with so they can
13:28help guide you to make the best decisions along the journey thank you for that so talk to me about who
13:35benefits from doula care and mama glow i am let's i think six weeks married i do not yet have kids
13:43but i want them is mama glow for me who is it for talk to us about who should be benefiting who can take
13:51advantage of all the resources you all have absolutely you should be coming now the thing that we think
13:56about is a lot of the information comes to us because we're in the process right like oh i'm currently
14:01pregnant now i want to get all the information no your entire reproductive life course the entire
14:07journey is the time to be learning right and so be at menarch we should be talking about like
14:12what choices we're making and this is critically important in a country and in a time where our
14:17reproductive rights are really at stake and so having this information earlier is better um as lisa um can
14:24also speak to like having someone in your corner that you feel really comfortable with you know can help you
14:30with that hand holding that you need along the journey right but mama goes for everyone um primarily
14:35we serve obviously people who are in the pregnancy period but fertility pregnancy and postpartum is
14:41really our jam right and so if you're in that realm or interested in that realm of course you can come
14:47and the services are for people who are along that journey and so you have people for some people for
14:52love delivered they might come to us and find the program after they delivered after their baby is
14:57already home and they say oh you know what i'm having a little struggle in postpartum and what
15:02we know is that um but postpartum period is a really vulnerable period for people
15:07and so what they will do they'll come to us and then we'll assign them a doula who will do postpartum
15:11care for them and what that might look like is helping them in the home helping them with recovery
15:17support helping them with breastfeeding adjusting to new parenthood and things like that so that's a
15:21really unique thing about the program is that you have birth doula support as well as postpartum doula
15:26support depending on what people's needs are thank you so it's for everybody and lisa so we have
15:34talked about why we started love delivered but what keeps it going for you and where do you really
15:39envision seeing the love delivered program go what's your vision of if we could help tell us
15:44tell us how you fill in that blank as your vision for love delivered you know we look at this country
15:50and we are a very developed nation and unfortunately i believe we rank 12th when it comes to maternal health
15:59care and that's overall maternal health care not just black maternal health care when it comes to black
16:05maternal health care the statistics are even worse and it should not be that way and honestly my goal
16:12our goal is to put the birthing people at the forefront of the conversation and not the medical
16:20professionals because of insurance because of different laws that have been written because of
16:27profitability because because because everything is lopsided so when we go into a birthing facility to
16:37have our children we should be in control of what happens to us how our bodies are positioned we should
16:44give consent as to whether or not we want to have certain tests and certain medications and so forth
16:50there's too much decision making that is taken away from the person who is literally going through the
16:56process and then like latham was saying we don't have to wait until we're pregnant to talk about being
17:04pregnant you you don't wait until you're married to talk about being married you were planning that
17:09thing for a long time so we can plan the getting pregnant part we can plan our diets our bodies our
17:17lives our mindset and give us time to build our team and support system because until you're in it
17:24you don't realize how life-changing the moment is and that's the conversation that we like to have
17:31is to remind people that this is once in a lifetime it is one of the most powerful things that you will
17:37do in your life to literally bring a human being into the world and it should be special and magical
17:43and powerful and it should not have fear incorporated in the dynamic that we can clap for that i think it's
17:52so powerful to lisa's point fear white women do not go to bed worried about whether or not they're going
17:59to die during childbirth they do not it is not a fear that they have and it will never actually be
18:04a fear that they have and so for us when we think about like birthing black joy we think about love
18:10delivery it is like swaddling people with support so they know that they can also do it but also
18:15develop the capacity for birthing that we know is inside of each of them and i think that's so important
18:22and i wanted to also say that i feel you know with the work that we've been doing over time because our
18:28children are older what we're seeing is that like this next generation we feel like we're like
18:33aunties that get to watch people come through and give them advice and support them but it's really a
18:40community effort right it's really a village effort yeah that's so true and when we think about even the
18:47arc of carol's daughter 30 years ago you started and we all went natural because of how carol's daughter
18:52made us feel so beautiful so educated so empowered to just go out and do that same with this process
18:59we are empowered through the education through these stories through the impact we know we could have
19:05these safe births we can celebrate this we don't have to be nervous and that's the work that we're
19:10doing with love delivered and in fact today we're really excited that we're actually launching a new
19:15series of love delivered maternal health videos they will be launched on youtube for carol's daughter
19:21and later on they'll also be on carolsdaughter.com go to youtube and be able to watch those videos
19:27share them with friends that you know that are considering uh planning to have kids like me and
19:32those that already are in process these videos are here to educate and we actually made them in
19:37partnership with cvs we also have some exciting news carol's daughter is donating 32 000 to love delivered
19:45to elevate with this work so 32 000 that can go a very long way to families who don't have this
19:52education so we're so excited that you're a part of this change that you're a part of this impact in
19:57this work this is what we're able to do when we come together and when we really share information so we
20:03could actually celebrate the impact that's happening celebrate this black birthing experience and get
20:08more positive stories out here rewrite that narrative on birthing with black women so ladies closing
20:15thoughts that you want to share around the program and what's to come for love delivered give us some
20:20more sneak peeks although they got a lot today well i'm just grateful to be in partnership with a
20:28woman who is a friend and a sister and for us to be able to do great work together that we're both
20:35passionate about and i love watching the team that works within carol's daughter who are equally excited
20:43about this work because it impacts all of us in some way if we don't have a story we have a family
20:49member who has a story negative or positive and for those of us that have the positive experiences we want
20:56everyone to have them and for those of us who have had negative ones we want no one to have those
21:01so it continues to be a labor of love and i just look forward to more and more beautiful babies that's
21:08right i love that um you know i think that when you think about the advocacy piece um all of us have a
21:18voice and it's really important to use our voices and i think the invitation that we have for you today
21:25um is that not only do you visit the carol's daughter youtube so you can engage in the advocacy
21:33training program but also that you use your voice to spread the word like each of us is an advocate
21:40because each of us is born of a woman right and more specifically as we think about who's mostly
21:46impacted we're talking about black women and so we this is not really um a black issue or a black
21:53women's issue it's a human rights issue right and so it's important for us to use our voices to get
21:58other people at the table to also help us make impact right so you don't have to wait till you get
22:05pregnant like we talked about but you can start today and you can make a difference today by sharing
22:11by sharing your own stories finding us sharing with us joining the program using you know a doula through
22:18the program you know we would love to see you as well but also think about the power of your unique
22:24voice and what you can bring to help us continue to lift up this message and continue to do the
22:29amplification work we've been doing to improve black maternal health thank you the last thing we will
22:35leave you with is what the brand is doing next so carol's daughter has tapped chanel iman to share more
22:41about her experience so she has had some experiences birthing as well and we want to tap into her story as we
22:48talked about to spread the word and to share what can be done to improve black maternal health so stay
22:54tuned for the work that we are collaborating with her on as well as the partnership with cvs as well
23:01as these doula grants if you or someone you know is interested in using them you can go over to the
23:06website and actually engage in the programming get funding if you yourself is interested in doula training
23:12maybe it's on your hearts to support another women birthing you could also engage in the program
23:16mama glow and carol's daughter would love that for love delivered we would love to see people impacted
23:21and if you're interested in taking that next step this program is here for you as well to do that get
23:27be a part of the certification and get trained to help another woman so thank you all for listening and
23:32hearing more about the success of this program let's give a hand clap for all the results that
23:37this program has delivered over 120 births and over 8 million women impacted people impacted from the
23:45program thank you all so much thank you
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