Ancient Song Doula Services
Photos by Curt Saunders for Black-Owned Brooklyn
“I was walking barefoot in Saratoga Park — and hugging trees. I don’t know if that’s a good idea, but that’s what I was doing,” says Chanel Porchia-Albert as she describes laboring with her first child in 2008, just before giving birth at her home in Bed-Stuy. “It was an eye-opening experience filled with positivity and self-awareness of my body.”
Chanel was so moved, in fact, three months later she started training to become a doula. By 2010, she founded Ancient Song Doula Services, an organization offering full-spectrum doula services and birth education classes specifically for women of color and low-income families. In addition to supporting pregnant people with emotional support, information and advocacy — before, during, and after the birth — the Brooklyn-based organization also trains a workforce of doulas to address maternal health inequities.
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Before having her first child, Chanel, a mother of six, had no plans for this line of work. In her former professional life, she was a commodities broker who imported diamonds and jewelry for companies like Sotheby’s. “When my husband and I were pregnant, I went to a regular OB-GYN, who happened to be a woman of color,” says Chanel, now 40, who’d assumed her doctor would be able to relate to her and the kind of birth she wanted. “She couldn’t. She was just real sterile; she had no vibes.”
Thankfully, two years earlier Chanel had stumbled upon a natural birth expo in Manhattan, where she’d met a Black midwife and doula who wound up facilitating her amazing birth experience — and sparked a new calling.
“Because I happened to be in a particular place at a particular time, I was able to receive information and care that I otherwise would not have received,” Chanel says of what first drew her to doula work. “I wanted to offer a way to help other people experience what I experienced.”
“We’re here to affirm someone wanting to bring children into the world, and we focus on the joy around that.”
Ancient Song was initially designed as a private business, until Chanel observed the shoddy treatment of her clients. “Medicaid patients were completely dismissed — waiting four to five hours for prenatal care, only to be seen for like 10 minutes,” she says. “I saw people criminalized at bedside with illegal drug tests, and Child Protective Services used as a tool to get people to comply with medical interventions they didn’t want. When a person would introduce me as their doula, my presence presided over the pregnant person who was right there, with doctors deferring all the questions to me.”
Chanel also understood how this fuels adverse maternal outcomes, especially in New York City. Nationally, Black women are three times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy-related complications — in New York City, Black women are eight times more likely to die.
To better support her community and push for more equitable maternal health care, Chanel offers Ancient Song’s doula services on a sliding scale depending on income. Services are free for those who otherwise can’t afford care. No family is turned away. Ancient Song doulas, as well as the organization’s doula training program, focus on birth as a human right, with a reproductive justice lens that affirms communities of color.
“Another component is helping people understand that we’re standing in the hope and resiliency of those who came before us,” Chanel says of her spiritual approach, which goes beyond merely providing services. “We’re here to affirm someone wanting to bring children into the world, and we focus on the joy around that, you know?”
Understandably, Ancient Song’s work to make the birthing experience as safe and joyous as possible has been challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization has had to temporarily close its physical doors, for example, and new hospital policies allow only one support person to attend a birth. But Chanel remains committed to offering help and reassurance. Ancient Song now provides virtual doula services (whether through phone calls, text message, Zoom, FaceTime or WhatsApp), and Chanel created a digital education platform that has trained about 350 doulas nationwide on serving patients virtually.
“A lot of the work we’ve had to do is around calming the fears of patients, keeping them up to date on what the protocols are and letting them know how we’re able to support and advocate for them,” she says. “Black and brown people were already not being heard and listened to before the pandemic, so I’ve just kicked into high gear to uplift these populations.”
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Also in response to the pandemic, Chanel organized a program to distribute groceries and diapers to pregnant and postpartum families across New York City. “Especially as a mother of six children, I knew there would be a problem with some people not being able to go out and buy diapers and formula, or there being no diapers and formula left,” she says. “I don’t really have time to think about what doesn’t work. I’ve just been focused on what I can do to get people what they need.” If you’d like to help with this effort, you can donate by visiting ancientsongdoulaservices.com. —By Jazmin Ali
521 Halsey St, Brooklyn, 347-480-9504, ancientsongdoulaservices.com
