# Caring for Women of Color: Community-Based Doulas’ Strategies in Hospital Birth in Los Angeles

## TL;DR

Community-based doulas help women of color navigate hospital births and address racial disparities in maternal health outcomes.

## Contribution

The study highlights how community-based doulas uniquely support women of color through transformative agency and reproductive justice.

## Key findings

- Community-based doulas effectively mediate between clients and biomedical practitioners.
- Their services help address discrimination and improve birth experiences for women of color.
- Doulas contribute to advancing reproductive justice through culturally competent care.

## Abstract

In the United States, women of color experience worse pregnancy and birth outcomes than white women. Likewise, many women of color report facing discrimination from perinatal health providers, and many experience precarity that can negatively impact birth experiences and outcomes. In this context, more women of color now embrace the use of community-based doulas. Using ethnographic data, I argue that community-based doulas, as members of the communities in which they offer their services, are uniquely able to negotiate the tensions between their clients and biomedical birth practitioners to engender acts of transformative agency and forward the cause of reproductive justice.