Black Doula Day Logo

The 2025 Global Celebration of

Black Doula Day

"The Future is Ancestral: Reclaiming Black Birth & Postpartum Wisdom"

By reclaiming our birthright to holistic, community-driven care, we are shaping a future where Black birth is protected, celebrated, and restored. Our ancestors guide us, and our children will inherit a world where Black birthing people are safe, joyful, and empowered. On April 11th, 2025, we rise together. The Future is Ancestral.

April 11th, 2025

Global Black Doula Day™ Celebration

Coined in 2022 by Okunsola M. Amadou with five-honorable proclamations designating every April 11th as Black Doula Day™. The Black Doula Day™ Global Launch took place on April 11, 2024 in partnership with Black Mamas Matter Alliance and 6-National Black Doula organizations.

This year’s Black Doula Day™ Global Celebration is a powerful declaration that our future lies in the wisdom of our past. As we launch this movement on a global scale, we center the timeless knowledge of our ancestors, embracing community-based birthwork, holistic restoration, and sustainable Black maternal health efforts.

Black doulas have always been the keepers of sacred birth traditions, acting as healers, advocates, and guardians of life. Through this year’s theme, we call on doulas, midwives, birthing people, and the broader community to reclaim and restore ancestral birthing practices that have sustained us for generations—practices that prioritize care over profit, relationships over institutions, and healing over harm.

Ways to Honor & Activate Black Doula Day 2025

1. Honoring the Beauty of Black Birth: Reclaiming Birth as a Sacred Rite

Community Birth Story Circles – Bring together Black birthing individuals, doulas, and elders to tell birth stories, venerating ancestral wisdom and intergenerational wisdom.

Build Sacred Community Spaces- Create communal birthing altars to center the needs of mothers giving birth in the city, region or state.

Ancestral Birth Rituals & Ceremonies – Organize events with African drumming, dance, naming ceremonies, herbal blessings, and other spiritual observances venerating Black birth.

Black Birth Photography & Art Exhibits – Jamaa Birth Village will host an in-person Black Doula Day Art Exhibit at its Historic Location in Ferguson, Missouri. Submit Black Doula Birth Photography or Artwork for submission here.

 

2. Holistic Restoration: Healing the Healers & Rebuilding the Village

Self-Care Retreats for Black Doulas & Birth workers – Rest, healing, and restoration as a top priority for those who care for others. Join in on the Black Maternal Health National Day of Rest led by Okunsola M. Amadou on April 17, 2025.

Ancestral Healing Practices Workshops – Join womb wellness, yoni steaming, belly binding, herbalism, and spiritual protection educational classes based on African and Indigenous traditions.

Reconnecting with Nature & Plant Medicine – Provide opportunities for doulas to teach and share knowledge around plant medicine, nutrition, and postpartum healing from Black and Indigenous traditions.

 

3. Building Sustainability in Black Maternal Health Work

The Black Doula Day Global Celebration (April 11th) – A nationwide mobilization highlighting this year's theme and the Black Doula Day™ 7-core demands to protect, push, and uplift the Black doula profession.

Policy & Advocacy Forums – Engage in discussions on birth justice, Medicaid expansion for doula services, and dismantling systemic racism in maternal care.

Community Doula Training & Mentorship Initiatives – Uplifting the next generation of Black doulas by making education accessible and community-led.

Funding & Economic Support for Black Doulas – Promote equitable compensation, grant funding, and cooperative economic models to allow the sustainability of Black-led birth work.

7 CORE DEMANDS FOR BLACK DOULA DAY ™

  • 1 Eliminate misconceptions of the doula scope of practice, including the difference between a doula and a midwife.
  • 2 Doulas should be paid an equitable reimbursement wage via private and Medicaid insurance at a minimum global reimbursement rate of $3000 USD, with variations at the rate based on country of service.
  • 3 Community-based and BIPOC-led organizations and Doulas in the state must be “included” as “experts” in the process of drafting legislation for reimbursement or in lieu of service (ILOS).
  • 4 Doulas should not be used or exploited as a solution or bandage to the biased health care system.
  • 5 Mental health care must be prioritized for BIPOC doulas who are continuously traumatized while attending births along with managing complicated personal lives due to the sacrifice of being on call and carrying the burden of the system.
  • 6 Doulas belong to the community not the state. States should not limit the type of trainings that doulas can take and certify with.
  • 7 It is important to emphasize the care components of the profession using terms such as Birth Companion, Family Support, etc… over the colonialist term Doula.
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April 11th, 2025

Countdown to Black Doula Day™️ 2025!