Birth behind bars: Doulas offer advice, help to incarcerated mothers

GIG HARBOR — Pregnant with her fourth child and facing a year in prison for dealing methamphetamine, Amanda Long was ready to change her behavior.

For as long as she had been a mother, Long had been selling drugs, stealing cars and committing petty crimes. But when she arrived at the Washington Corrections Center for Women eight months pregnant, she wondered what would happen to her baby after he was born. Who could she turn to for advice about her pregnancy while she was behind bars?

Long turned to a resource that pregnant women have relied on for centuries — doulas.

The corrections center, which has gained national recognition for its programs for pregnant inmates, is also believed to be the only prison in the U.S. to offer expectant mothers and those who already have given birth access to trained doulas.

The prison's Residential Parenting Program allows inmates serving terms of no more than three years and who give birth while incarcerated to keep their children with them until the end of their sentence or until the child is 2-½ years old, whichever comes sooner. Experts believe the time together allows babies to bond with their mothers and leads to lower recidivism rates among inmates.

The volunteer doulas' goal is simple: to ease inmates' fears and concerns about childbirth and child rearing under circumstances that are far from normal.

For inmates like Long, the prison doulas provide the kind of advice and instruction readily available for women outside prison but much more difficult to access behind bars. Long credits the doula program for helping her deal with her pregnancy and the birth of her son, Dionicio, who now lives with her in the prison.

Said Long of the prison doulas: "They were someone you could talk to and could be there [for you]. They had a bunch of books you could check out or tell you anything you wanted to know about babies and pregnancy."

The doulas, members of an Olympia-based doula group called The Birth Attendants, work with the entire prison population as well as the prison's Residential Parenting Program, which helps pregnant inmates and new mothers maneuver their way through childbirth and beyond.

"We're not there to pass judgment," but to educate, said doula Zimryah Barnes, who is part of the prison-doula project. "We don't deny anybody support who requests it."

Barnes and other members of The Birth Attendants have become a familiar resource around the prison since they brought the concept to prison officials in 2002. Barnes said the program is based on a similar one in prisons in the United Kingdom.

The doulas offer one-on-one counseling sessions and courses on sex education and family planning. Some doulas even are present when inmates travel to a Tacoma hospital to deliver their babies. Many of those inmates are allowed to raise their children inside the prison as long as they follow strict behavior guidelines.

Each Friday inmates meet with the doulas, sharing intimate details about the sexual abuses they have suffered, their debilitating postpartum depression, fears about raising children and concerns about nurturing a newborn behind the razor wire and chain-link fencing.

Providing counseling

On a recent Friday, one pregnant inmate complained about getting bigger, another said she needed time away from the infant son she's raising in her cell and a third woman — who is not pregnant — cried as she discussed her desire to someday have children of her own.

For two emotional hours, the women ignored the rattling heater and uncomfortable chairs to listen as Barnes and another doula tried to put them at ease by describing their own experiences with pregnancy, abortion and childbirth — albeit under far different circumstances.

Barnes and Zoë Hebard explained to the group that despite their surroundings and difficult past, much of what they're thinking and feeling is normal.

When one inmate sobbed about her troubled reproductive history, Hebard consoled her with a gentle hug and Barnes, a mother of one, shared her own experiences with childbirth.

"I have different experiences and can share what did or didn't work for me," said Barnes, who has been a doula for more than five years. "When we're talking about prisons, too, there are so many layers to that environment. People don't always have time to talk to the women about their emotional processes. The women are under a huge amount of stress."

Long said that shortly after she arrived at the prison she heard other inmates talking about the doula program and thought that she would give the two-hour Friday class a try.

Now, five months from her release, Long says, she has learned the importance of good parenting, which includes staying out of trouble. When she gets out of prison she plans to raise Dionicio and her other children — ages 5, 3 and 20 months — who have been living with her aunt, and take classes to become a drug and alcohol counselor.

Inmate Danyielle Slothaug said she also talked with prison doulas before giving birth last year.

Slothaug, a 29-year-old mother of three, said she learned about pregnancy breathing and postpartum depression through the doulas. The Lynnwood woman, serving a nearly three-year sentence for vehicle theft, gave birth behind bars to her third child in November.

Many of the women don't have spouses and lose ties with friends and family when they are sent to prison, Hebard said. She hopes the "group is a space where people can feel there is a little community."

Prison Superintendent Douglas O. Cole said the doulas bring inmates "a personal community touch."

"Many times, women in prison don't feel like they get that kind of typical community support. What a group like that coming in does is connect them so there is a personal support," Cole said. "When they talk to somebody candidly about their experiences it's a lot less fearful. It's not just another person in prison telling them something they need to know, it's somebody in the community sharing an experience."

A second chance

The visiting doulas are one aspect of an overall prison program that includes the Residential Parenting Program, which is open only to inmates who come into the prison pregnant and are serving sentences of less than three years. Nearly 160 babies have been born to inmates under the nine-year-old program.

Currently, 11 mothers and their babies live in the prison's housing unit as well as three women who are expecting children, said Dawnie Ahmu, a classification counselor in the Residential Parenting Program.

Prison officials point to the program as offering women a chance to be successful once they are released. Inmates involved in the program can keep their children with them from birth until the end of their sentence or until the child is 2-½ years old, whichever comes sooner.

The women who have participated in the program have had a crime-recidivism rate of about 15 percent, compared with 40 percent for women who aren't in the program, said Katrina Avent, who supervises the parenting program.

All of the program participants get about $212 a month from the state Department of Social and Health Services to pay for diapers, wipes, lotions, food and other baby necessities, Ahmu said. The children are also enrolled in an Early Head Start program inside the prison.

"It's 24 hours a day being a mom, you learn so much," Slothaug said, looking down at her infant daughter as she squirmed in her crib. "I love the program. It gives you a chance to learn how to be a mom and change how you used to be."

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com