“Every story needs to be heard”
A crowd of mothers, fathers, grandparents, and Parents as Teachers senior leadership and doulas gathered around new mothers one by one at the 2025 This Is My Birthing Story event, listening intently as each one shared the story behind their display, each piece telling their unique birthing story.
“Every birth is different,” said Donna Givens, Manager of Community Partnerships and Groups/Doula for Parents as Teachers National Center’s affiliate Show Me Strong Families. “Every story needs to be heard.”
Each of these mothers are served by Show Me Strong Families, receiving home visiting services from a parent educator and, during pregnancy and birth, a doula. In fact, four of the program’s five staff play dual roles as both parent educators and full-spectrum doulas. The doulas in the home visiting program provide valuable emotional and physical support during labor. They also inform and empower pregnant mothers to advocate for themselves during birth and prepare for motherhood afterwards.
“A lot of them say, ‘We feel like we wouldn’t have a voice, if we did not know that we could,'” Givens said.
A doula herself, Givens created This Is My Birthing Story five years ago to give these mothers a platform for sharing their birthing experience and positive birth outcome. Listeners follow a “poster walk,” stopping at each display to listen, ask questions, and bear witness to the significance of what they hear. Some of the mothers at the event are describing their first birthing experience; for others, it’s the first one that hasn’t gone poorly. This year’s event was held at The Heights, a community center in Richmond Heights, MO.
The event celebrates Black Maternal Health Week, which takes place annually from April 11-17. It’s the second of three pivotal events for families with babies over the course of the Show Me Strong Families year. Caregivers and children experience a ‘circle of celebration,’ beginning with a baby shower and culminating in a first birthday party for those same babies whose births were honored during the birthing story event.
For Givens, her role is more than just a job.
“It’s a passion and a purpose for me,” she said, “to make sure that these mamas have positive birth outcomes.”
In fact, as she described her passion during the interview for this story, she asked to pause because her work phone rang. “I have a mom who’s going in [to deliver] any minute now,” she said. In the end, it wasn’t time for labor yet, but she had called Givens with a question.
It was a demonstration of the way that doulas serve as a holistic resource for prenatal mothers and the partnership that This Is My Birthing Story celebrates: families, doulas, and parent educators joining together build thriving families and children who are healthy, safe, and ready to learn.
