Everyone Deserves a Doula (EDD) is Balanced Mama’s non-profit. EDD exists to support Arkansas families during the birthing year (nine months of pregnancy, birth, and three months of postpartum time). This support includes scholarships for doula services (birth, bereavement, postpartum), lactation support, organization of free or low-cost peer support groups, classes, workshops, and events. This support will also include redistribution of supplies and equipment that can be used during the birthing year.
Scholarship Fund
Doulas are proven to help improve birth and postpartum outcomes and overall experiences. Yet too often, doula services are least accessible to those who most need our help. Balanced Mama is setting up a doula scholarship fund to help make doula services more accessible in our community. This will allow us the ability to serve more families of Central AR and overcome some of the disadvantages that have created huge disparities in birth outcomes for poorer families, younger parents, and women of color.
Supplies
Balanced Mama is an easy place to donate your new or gently used baby supplies. We plan to expand the scale and scope of this practice!
Classes and Education
We LOVE our classes, and think that education in the birthing year is so important! We also never want cost to get in the way of attendance or accessibility. As we continuously expand our class and workshop offerings, we also hope to be able to offset costs for those who need a little help.
Community Building
One of our favorite parts about Balanced Mama is the community building that we are able to facilitate. It warms our hearts to see clients meeting, supporting each other, and building friendships! As Balanced Mama grows and expands, we hope to expand our community building events and support groups.
We are very excited about the opportunity to expand our community here at Balanced Mama and reach more families than ever before!
When will all this be available?
Everyone Deserves a Doula is in it’s infancy. We’re working through creating our policies and procedures, and we’re only just starting to build our funding and supplies. We’re hoping to roll out and support our first families starting in the new year.
Want to get involved?
Currently accepting donations! Along with money, we are accepting donations new or gently used birth/infant/baby supplies.
We’re also looking for folks who may be interested in joining our advisory board! If you’re passionate about birth, families, brainstorming, ect… and also want to hang out with the coolest group of doulas twice a year, reach out!