Nurturely

I absolutely love the organizations that I support through my coaching and programs. So this Giving Tuesday, I want to shine a light on them and their important work. 🔥 I know today can feel overwhelming. But don't let the extra noise distract you from the opportunity... Just as birthdays or anniversaries are opportunities to pause and say “I love you” to our loved ones, today is an opportunity to pause and say to the nonprofits in your world: “I see you. Your work is important.” So this Giving Tuesday, I encourage you to find simple ways to center and celebrate generosity ❤️ And if you’d like to support an organization that’s new to your world, definitely check out these incredible organizations: 🔥 >> @Willie Mae Rock Camp: Integrates music, technology & STEM to empower girls and gender-expansive youth to thrive as creative leaders in a tech-driven future. >> Brooklyn Debate League: Equalizes access to the transformative power of speech & debate. >> Nurturely: Promotes infant and maternal health equity through education, research, and community engagement. >> STEM To The Future: Creates educational programs that show how personal liberation can spark broader societal change. >> STEM From Dance: Empowers girls of color to explore STEM through dance-based programs. >> DRIVE CHANGE, INC.: Uses the food truck industry to run a fellowship for young people returning home from jail and prison. >> Avenue Scholars :Ensures careers for students of hope and need through education and supportive relationships. >> San Francisco Beacon Initiative: Helps the people who work at schools work together better and create better schools. >> The RISE Center for Liberation in Early Childhood Education: Makes sure babies, toddlers, and preschoolers can access high-quality, culturally affirming care and education before age five. >>Building Electrification Institute (BEI): Helps cities fight climate change by working with them to create policies and programs to transition buildings off of fossil fuels and onto clean energy. >>Hamilton Partnership for Paterson: Supports the educational, social, and economic benefits of the Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park in NJ >>Cohort Sistas: Creates a pipeline to doctoral education for historically excluded scholars, especially Black women. >> CROP Organization: Reimagines reentry through a holistic, human-centered approach to advocacy, housing, and skill development. >>Nonprofit Quarterly: Provides independent journalism to strengthen the capacity of civil society. >>PEPS (Program for Early Parent Support): Builds and strengthens connection between parents to strengthen families and build community. >> Sauti Yetu Center for African Women, Inc: Mobilizes African immigrant women to improve their lives, strengthen families, and develop communities. >> Empower The Village: Empowers and uplift communities of African descent through education and economic development.

Update: Our opening keynote session, "The Historical, Psychosocial, and Cultural Context of Breastfeeding in the African American Community," will now be led by Nekisha Killings MPH, IBCLC. Dr. Camille Clare, who was originally scheduled, will still join us virtually for the live Q&A. We look forward to an insightful discussion and thank both speakers for their participation! #ABM24 #OpeningKeynote #BreastfeedingMedicine #BlackMaternalHealth

Nurturely was my first baby. My dream was to start a community-based social change organization that uses research to understand and solve health equity challenges. This is a difficult task because the funding structures and resources for community-based orgs are not set up to support research, despite this being a critical tool for preventing disparities. Simultaneously, systems of academic institutions are not set up to address disparities from a community-based approach. 👎🏻 Thanks to the IMPROVE Initiative from Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), this is starting to change. Nurturely had the very special opportunity to participate in a national challenge: the IMPROVE Initiative’s Connecting the Community for Maternal Health Challenge, dedicated to building research infrastructure in community-based organizations, helping to set us up to be competitive for NIH and other funding mechanisms.📊 We are excited and grateful to announce that out of 8 national finalists in this challenge (of 95 participating teams), Nurturely was the recipient of the First Place Prize! 🏆 This week we traveled to the National Institutes of Health HQ to present our research update as the challenge winners. Together with Aver Y. , Nurturely Program Director, and alongside the many other talented participants of the IMPROVE Initiative, we shared an update on our implementation and effectiveness research testing infant carrying as a cultural intervention to reduce postpartum depression and increase lactation. But the best part was sharing the stage with our newest team member..... Zylo Orion Little Junod! 👶🏼 This sweet boy was born on September 2nd, full term and healthy under the committed and compassionate care of midwives and doulas (including the one and only Sabia Wade!) Zylo is committed to building a world where wellness for all babies and caregivers is a human right, and he’s already hard at work, sharing his message at NIH and beyond! He learned so much from this two-day research meeting and can't wait to expand our collaborations as we continue pursuing equity-centered effectiveness and implementation research 💪🏼 A huge thank you to the dedicated team at NIH, especially including Juanita J. Chinn, Ph.D., Nahida Chakhtoura, Maurice Davis, and Jennifer Wisdom, for stewarding this unique opportunity to bridge academia and the community, and for believing in Nurturely's vision of using preventative, culturally-rooted research to solve postpartum health disparities. 💯 #IMPROVEInitiative #MaternalHealthEquity #PerinatalHealth https://lnkd.in/edM54iVx

Feeding your baby with your body is a racial justice issue. At Nurturely, we support however you choose to feed your baby. AND we care deeply about ensuring equitable access to informed choices, accurate information, and proactive support for everyone—because #HumanMilkisaHumanRight. **The Problems:** 💧 Lactation has a painful history—during enslavement, Black mothers were forced to breastfeed their enslavers' children 💧 Today, racism in medicine persists: Black infants are 9x more likely to be offered formula in hospitals than white infants 💧 Cultural racism leaves global majority parents without culturally appropriate lactation support, as many spaces are white-centered **The Solutions:** 🖤 Leaders like Kimberly Seals Allers are highlighting these barriers in books like *The Big Letdown* (highly recommend!) 🖤 The founders of Black Breastfeeding Week are championing racial equity in lactation (now in its 12th year!) 🖤 Research from Dr. Ifeyinwa Asiodu is advancing our understanding of racism in lactation 🖤 Tools like the Melanated Mammary Atlas are eliminating excuses for racism in clinical lactation care, thank you Nekisha Killings MPH, IBCLC 🖤 Nurturely is collaborating with Black-led home visiting programs to explore culturally-rooted lactation support solutions like baby carrying 🖤 Our Milk Magic Educators program treats lactation as a racial justice issue, offering full scholarships to Black birthworkers, with self-paced classes led by experienced professionals. 🎉 As we celebrate #BlackBreastfeedingWeek, I reflect with gratitude on attending the 10th-anniversary celebration in NY, where I connected with many of these amazing leaders and Milk Magic Educators. Here's to continued celebrations and the important work ahead!

New Report! Wildfires Threaten Pregnancies! “Human Rights Watch and Nurturely interviewed more than 50 maternal health providers including doctors, doulas, midwives, and community health workers in Oregon – a state greatly affected by wildfires – as well as public health officials and scientists. Findings showed that trusted community-based health workers, including doulas and midwives, are important but under-supported in providing information and protective strategies. They found that some communities struggle to find and use public health information, like advice on when and how to use air filters on high-risk, low-air-quality wildfire smoke days. Pregnant people and other at-risk groups should be included in planning how to reach the groups who can most benefit from the information.” Access the full report here: https://lnkd.in/gZfivgFQ

Many people want to support the arrival of our little one with gifts - and we’re so grateful! But here’s my actual baby wishlist. All this baby wants is to come into a world where… 🖤 racism and inequities are eliminated 🖤 access to human milk is a human right 🖤 cultural practices like baby carrying are uplifted 🖤 postpartum is synonymous with support 🖤 cultures are connected locally/globally 🖤 climates are protected and resilience is prioritized I don’t think it’s asking too much 💅🏼 Contribute to this registry HERE: https://lnkd.in/grjwt6yF If just a portion of my social media connections donated *just* $5, this lucky babe would be well on their way to reaching our Nurturely registry goal ✨ 🖤#babyregistry #perinatalequity https://lnkd.in/grjwt6yF Photo by Wild Earth Weddings

As a licensed clinical social worker, therapist, researcher, and advocate, I am so encouraged by a shift in society’s perception of mental health. If you didn’t know, Black Maternal Mental Health Week (July 19-24) is an awareness week started by Shades of Blue Project. Why do we need a Black Maternal Mental Health Week? Black mamas and birthing people have higher rates of postpartum depression, yet the least access to prevention and treatment. Interventions to support postpartum mental health are not based in Black or Global Majority cultural practices. And this needs to change. At Nurturely, we are addressing these disparities through: 1. Research: Nurturely has published research showing that infant carrying, a cultural practice rooted in Black and Global Majority communities, is effective in reducing symptoms of postpartum depression; 2. Education: Nurturely designed an infant carrying course for perinatal professionals to learn how to incorporate this preventative intervention into your healthcare services, community care practice, or digital health platform (contact us for details!); and 3. Cultural Change: It's important to change the narrative that "postpartum" equals depression, because it does not! Check out the article from Nurturely Founder: https://lnkd.in/gUCbfbk8 Additional calls to action — educate yourself, share with others, apply to join the Nurturely Board if you feel aligned with this work, and if you are interested in donating to our new climate resilient, double the space, healing Nurturely Lounge where a lot of this education and cultural change happens, you can do so here: https://lnkd.in/gvh-2E_n. Let’s remember we’re connected, may we take care of ourselves and one another. ♥️✊🏾

It's Black Maternal Mental Health Week, an awareness week initiated by Shades of Blue Project. I'm honored to serve on Nurturely's board of directors, a non-profit dedicated to addressing the root causes of perinatal inequity, including Black maternal mental health disparities. Black birthing people face higher rates of postpartum depression with limited access to prevention and treatment. Nurturely's work focuses on culturally rooted interventions to support postpartum mental health. At Nurturely, we're combating these challenges through: 1. Research: Our studies demonstrate the effectiveness of culturally grounded practices like infant carrying in reducing postpartum depression symptoms. 2. Education: We offer perinatal professionals a course on infant carrying to learn how to incorporate this preventive intervention into their healthcare services, community care practice, or digital health platform (reach out for details!). 3. Cultural Change: We're reshaping the narrative around postpartum experiences, highlighting that it doesn't have to equal depression. Interested in learning more? Access Nurturely's journal article on preventing postpartum depression here: https://lnkd.in/e7JgpCQc #BlackMaternalMentalHealth #PerinatalEquity #MentalHealthAwareness #WomensHealth

Starting an organization is incredibly challenging. Balancing the need for business success (aka, revenue generation) alongside impact success (aka, having a wellness-centered model, keeping racial equity centered, and maintaining your own humanity) is even more challenging. I’m so lucky to have had the best BUSINESS doula by my side for the growing and nurturing of my first baby, Nurturely (in addition to having a great friend while now growing an actual baby…!) Sabia Wade is best known for the massive following and community she built as a reproductive justice leader, podcaster, speaker, curriculum developer, and so much more at The Black Doula (AND Birthing Advocacy Doula Trainings AND For the Village!). Oh, also author of one of my favorite reproductive justice books: Birthing Liberation! 📙 Now, she brings her lens of collective liberation and intersectional inclusion to *anti-capitalist business coaching* in her new podcast and mentorship community: Found Free. I cannot recommend her coaching services enough, which she makes accessible with her new monthly membership model. If you are building a team, business, nonprofit, or any revenue-generating enterprise, and you want to keep humanity, wellness, and equity at the center, this is a service you must invest in! buff.ly/3VKkPkU “Found Free is set apart by the dedicated focus on understanding the layers of humanity through a lens of radical liberation and reproductive justice, echoing the message that “when we center the most marginalized, we all benefit.”. Sabia, a skilled builder of bridges, brings her experience as an author, coach, full-spectrum doula, spiritual director, educator, CEO, and Domme to her new podcast with the same candid fearlessness as found in her previous project, The Black Doula podcast.”