Podcast - Episode 13 - Reclaiming African Knowledge Around The World
Interview with Dr Andrea Little Mason
I chat with educator, advocate and birth ambassador Dr Andrea Little Mason, also known as Dr Doula. Together we discuss the clarion call to connect with your ancestors, understand the wisdom in your culture and your part in caring for new mothers. At the core of this conversation is Dr Doula's personal journey to discovering her origins in birth and postpartum, then how she invites others to do the same.
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Dr Andrea Little Mason, also known as Dr Doula, is an educator, researcher, author, speaker and breastfeeding counsellor. Andrea is the developer of the Sankofa Birth Ambassador Workshop through Sankofa Birth, which encourages women to "reclaim their birth rites" by reaching back to take hold of the best that previous generations have to teach about birth, so they can be equipped to move forward and to heal and save themselves to overcome challenges of the childbearing year. Andrea also pioneered the "Africa to the Diaspora" Birth and Postpartum Project that seeks to "reconnect knowledge and skills of women of Africa to the women of African descent who have been scattered around the globe."
We explore the following questions:
How did you respond to the calling of working in birth and postpartum?
What has your personal journey been in discovering your origins?
How did you come to the revolution of reclaiming our birth rights?
How do you respond to discussions on the rates at which Black women and babies are dying?
How have you relentlessly searched for your cultural story around birth?
Are you able to share any of the postpartum traditions that you’ve learned?
Is there a cultural piece that is different when supporting African-American mothers?
How do you help people embrace rest, particularly in light of the impact of slavery?
Tell us more about what you do to help African-American women reclaim your birth rights?
What’s the one thing you want to say to people considering supporting mothers?
Additional resources we spoke about:
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Transcript
Julia Jones:
Hello. Today on the podcast we have Andrea. Andrea caught my attention because she is just such a radiant, positive light in the world. We met through another friend of ours, Layla... Layla B, who many of you know because she was on the podcast a little while ago, and doing a postpartum summit together. Both of us are really, really passionate about postpartum and really, really passionate about reconnecting with our ancestors. I wanted to invite Andrea on the show because I think Andrea, you just have an amazing way of expressing things in a really positive way that...
Andrea Little Mason:
Oh, thank you.
Julia Jones:
... that makes people really want to dive into their own ancestry as well, which is obviously something I really love. I really care about that. Particularly, I mean, you can introduce yourself how you like to be described, but as an African-American woman, that must be particularly difficult to be able to reconnect with those roots. I mean, that is a really unique challenge. You've done amazingly well to both reconnect with that and then to share that with the world as well.
So, yes, do you want to tell me... I know you have, as well, some amazing education credentials too, so hit me up. Tell me about yourself?
Andrea Little Mason:
Hi, Julia. Well, first let me say how much you caught my attention because we both worked together as presenters. We both presented during the summit, and it was a wonderful. You were also a very, very radiant energy. You spoke to me. You spoke to me. You spoke to me. So, I have to say that, just to start, how much of an impact that you had on me. I really just... I'll introduce myself first, but I just wanted to say this, I had never met someone that wasn't... Well, that was European descendant, that was like, "I want to connect with my ancestors." I'd never met that. I'd never heard that in my ear, and I was like, "Wait a minute..." So, you need to know before we begin that you really were one of the first people that I heard, and you transformed a major part of the way that I think, so you need to know that. So...
Julia Jones:
Aw, it's a big ol' Andrea-Julia lovefest.
Andrea Little Mason:
Yes. So, I am Andrea Little Mason... Dr. Andrea Little Mason, affectionately known as Dr. Doula. I am not a medical doctor, but I am a doctor of education and I specialize in curriculum and instruction. As far as professionally in education, I'm mathematics, some engineering, things like that. But because of the call that I feel, I find myself in birth.
So, I have a husband of 24 years, working on 25 in May. I have four sons, 23, 21, 16, and 14. I find myself... Honestly, I go back often and say, how did I find myself in birth? The truth of the matter is that I feel like, it's almost the only way I can say this, I just feel like there's this call, it's like "Come...".
I always say, "Wait a minute, I could have started this when I was 20, if this is where I was going to end up. I could have started this when I was younger." I was basically turning 40. I had finished my doctorate program. I looked up and I found myself planted in birth, literally. The moment that I submitted my final dissertation for approval, I went on the internet and I saw something about birth pop up, and it just, “huuuuuh”. So, I'm here. There have been times when I've been disillusioned by things, that feeds why and how I do what I do now, but I just never expected to be here. It's a calling. I consider it a calling.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, I absolutely talk about it in the same way. Often people say, "Oh, you know, how come you do what you do? And how did you even know?" Because it's not really a thing, you know? Being in our culture now, we've lost so much touch with those traditions that it's not really a thing to be a postpartum doula or to know and care about that stuff. I was like, well... As soon as I heard about it, I just had no choice. That was just it. I had to figure out how to do it. Even though I didn't have anyone to teach me or those traditions, it wasn't like I could go to university and study this, so I just had to think outside the box and find the answers in all sorts of different ways. Yes, here we are, answering the calling.
How did you respond to the calling of working in birth and postpartum? (05:25)
Andrea Little Mason:
Yeah. There's a particular... It's very unique with women of African descent in the United States, because it's such a recent history, and it's one where my father... Or I have relatives that can tell me about a time that was very different, only 50 or so years ago. They can tell me about the times when they weren't allowed to be in hospitals or when they weren't allowed to do certain things. So, it's very recent, but for so many, those two or maybe three generations feel like such a... Just a big gulf that is so hard to cross and build a bridge to. I always try to encourage people that we have to do that because that's what sustained us, that's what has kept us. As women of African descent in this country, I have a blog that I do, 'Dr. Doula Says', and I was looking... Researching something, and I don't know why I put it in the blog post... In the Search Engine in Google.
I put "Black pregnant women," and I was floored by what I saw. Just a whole... There was a litany of "Black women die. Why Black women and babies don't survive? What's killing Black wo-," I just basically took all of the headings, I took every title, and I put it there, and I just called the post. I said, "Google, black pregnant women," and see what comes up. We know that our maternal and infant mortality rates are higher, and there's an effort to call forth doulas and to call forth the Black midwife again, that 50 years ago, whenever I talked to older people, they're like, "They were everywhere." Now they're not. There's also something else that I believe that we're missing. The way that we as women of African descent were able to sustain ourselves was a little different than what's modeled now. That was inviting the average person to just embrace birth.
If I speak to my great-aunt who's 90-years-old, and I ask her and I say, "Hey. So, did all of your children..." I ask her about her births. She told me, with one of them, she said, "Well, the midwife didn't make it so my mom and my aunt had to help me." There was not the fear... I often say this, I said people were more likely to know what births sounded like, what birth smelled like. Their senses were likely... Women were likely to be exposed to that. So, because I love postpartum as well, just very natural things that occur around birth and around the postpartum period, those very natural things that were described to me by my father, by my aunts, "Well, what did you all do with the women from down the street?" "They would come and they would help me." Waiting for the midwife... Waiting. Then after the midwife left, this is what the women in the community did. This is what the women did. When it comes to looking at this, and I don't want to overtalk or anything, but when it comes to looking at this... At this point, there are more black women that are saying, "Okay, I want a doula. I need a doula." The challenge becomes the profession... Looking at it as a profession. And the only thing that I can guess is that there's something in them that tells them, "I don't know if I want to pay this many dollars to have someone come and wait on me this way. I don't know..." I don't know what that is exactly?
Julia Jones:
Yeah.
Andrea Little Mason:
But I look at it as a multipronged approach. If we're looking at reducing infant mortality rates and maternal mortality rates, then you have your trained professionals, but then the average Black person, Black woman, also needs to kind of say, "Okay, let me reacquaint myself with something that I was told that was beneath me. I was told 'was the old way'. I was told 'was backwards'. I was told 'this was not whatever'. Let me reacquaint myself with these things." Then those that are not in a position necessarily to hire help because there maybe are financial challenges or whatever, then they can do that. They can... I don't know? Just a culture around that. If you're not able to hire that for yourself, then you can... All is not lost, I'll say it that way.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, I agree. Because, traditionally, it would've been your mother, your aunts, your sisters. I do think women should be paid well for their skills. As well, if you don't have the money for that, there should be still a cultural framework that means that it doesn't mean there's nothing. Sorry, I just want to stop you because I noticed you never used the word "African-American." Is that a word you prefer not to be called?
Andrea Little Mason:
No, not at all.
Julia Jones:
Okay.
Andrea Little Mason:
It's amazing. It's amazing. Because, actually, in this frame, I will vacillate between many things, Black woman, African-American woman, and amazingly, some people are like, "I don't want to be called 'African-American women'. I don't want to be called..." On my website, often there is, "I'm reaching out to blah, blah, blah for African-American women." Everyone here identifies however they want. So, you might hear "an African in America," or you might hear "diasporic African," or "African-American." So, you're likely to hear me just go with-
Julia Jones:
Use all of the terms, yeah. Just so that it includes everyone. Yeah.
Andrea Little Mason:
Everyone. So, talking to you, you know?
What has your personal journey been in discovering your origins? (11:48)
Julia Jones:
Tell me about your personal journey then? You've obviously asked your own grandmother and your family. Have you been able to go any further back? Do you know where your origins are?
Andrea Little Mason:
No. Well, most African-American people are not able to track that. That was one of those special things that were done with the intermixing and breeding of languages, cultures, and everything. Most will not be able to pinpoint... Most will not be able to pinpoint where they came from, from the continent of Africa, but then many will be able to say, "Well, I know my family is from Mississippi or Alabama or South Carolina." They can pinpoint it there. Then if there are some old records that were kept, most likely like a slave record or something of that sort, then there might be a name that can be connected. But all of those things were where people were listed as property. If you’re of African descent... "Now, not all..." People will say, "Well, not all, but the majority of those that have been here since that time would have a history that was related to some type of ancestral relative that had been enslaved at some point." The majority.
For my personal journey, amazingly, my mother, she passed away three months before I got married. What she told me, she would say, "Don't worry about having a baby. I'm going to come." She was a teacher. She taught me in high school and everything. She says, "Don't worry, I'm going to come when you have your baby. I'll tell you everything that you need to do. I'm going to take off a year." Because she was a math teacher and she was one of those that never missed school, never took holiday or anything like that. She was like, "Don't worry, I've got days stored up." That was back before they put limitations on how many days you could take off. She had a year of vacation. She passed away right before I got married. I was devastated because all I knew was that she said there were things that I could know. Now, my mother's family grew up on... My mother grew up on a farm, what we call "red dirt roads" here. I don't know what color your dirt roads might be there, but this is a red dirt-
Julia Jones:
Very red.
Andrea Little Mason:
Red in the woods, unpaved... That's where she grew up. That's where we spent our three months out of the year in the summer. All I knew was that she said, "I will show you everything. I'll take care of you, don't worry about it." Then she wasn't there. So, I had moved up north to Chicago with my husband, and he basically was my support system. He was there for all of my births. I always just felt... I said, "There's something that she said she was going to tell me. She never told me." I would push past that. I had my sons. There was always something in between. I would read books. I thought about becoming a midwife because I kept feeling this tug towards things and... Nothing.
Here in Illinois, you have to go through nursing school. I already had my master's degree. I did not want to start over. I was like, "No, maybe midwife is not for me. I don't know?" Kept having my children. Finally, I just... It came up. It was just like I would have friends that were pregnant. I was like, I just knew I was supposed to be there, Julia. I knew I was supposed to be there. I didn't know why? I didn't understand why these women didn't want me there? Whether it was for birth or after birth... Nothing. It's like, "Let me cook for you." I was like, "Let me cook meals for you. Let me come help you with your kids." Nothing. They were just like, "Why are you doing that? Why are you being that way?" It was a strange situation that went on for many years.
Julia Jones:
We live in this culture where people are so independent, they almost take it as an insult. "What do you think, I can't cope? I can do this. I'm fine." Rather than accepting that actually it's the norm to be supported by your women. That's such a normal thing throughout history.
How did you come to the revolution of reclaiming our birth rights? (16:35)
Andrea Little Mason:
It is. It absolutely is. I was offended many times because they were offended. Like, "Leave me alone." Actually, I was saddened because I didn't come to this revolution of reclaiming our birth rights and really going forward with that until after both of my grandmothers, who only birthed at home, had passed away maybe 10 years ago. One of my grandmother's sisters was there. I have a great aunt. I had other women and I've gone... and they would tell me... my aunt will tell me about what they did. She told me about some of my grandmother's birth, some things like that. I've sought to connect some dots there. I also would ask my father, I would ask the old, just anyone that I could find in those areas, "tell me about these things." I actually ran into a woman who said her grandmother birthed in the area where my, well, she was a midwife, in the area where my family lived. I don't know how I met her, but she told me her great-grandmother's name. She said all these things. That's something that I'm looking at.
You were saying, how am I pursuing it? Literally, today and always, I kind of go, Julia, and I am not afraid to ask a question. I look for people in different countries, on the other side of the world, I'm like, "Hello, my name is... I work with women in this area. I would like to know more about your postpartum practices, your birth and postpartum practices and traditions?" Someone from Ghana, someone from Zimbabwe, someone just anywhere... in the UK, in the whatever. I will tell you this, there are more things that I find about the traditions of what happens with the baby naming ceremonies. "What do you do at eight days for the baby? What do you do for the baby?"
When I ask, "Well, tell me what they do with the mother?" They tell me, "I will have to go and find someone that can answer that question for you." It will most likely be one of the grannies in the village and they don't speak much English. I'm always amazed. I'm always amazed that that part of it, when we talk about really honor our ancestor, I am searching for, what did we do for the women? I mean, there are websites..."this is the clothing that we wore," and whatever, but what did they do with the women?
So, that informs me when I say, "Let's go back." I really believe that for this to be... I know especially with Black women here in America, in order for this to work, it can't be our lack of access to hospitals or poverty. I tell people that all the time. People say, "Oh, it's a lack of access to care." My family was very poor. My mother grew up on a farm in Alabama, and my father grew up just very poor in Alabama. My Big Mama, that's my dad's mom, that's what we call her, she earned about $3 a day as a maid. Things like that. Poverty can't be it. That can't be the thread.
Julia Jones:
No, I agree. In my work, looking into our indigenous culture in Australia, we have actually very good breastfeeding rates amongst our Aboriginal population here. I think that's because of the lack of intervention. Actually, when you get out of that system and you get in tune with your body and you get in tune with your baby, and you've got your elders and your community supporting you, the answer isn't just help. It's got to be the right kind of help. And particularly culturally appropriate help and feminine help. Not this masculine, industrialized system.
How do you respond to discussions on the rates at which Black women and babies are dying? (21:00)
Andrea Little Mason:
Yes. Absolutely. I totally agree. That's what I've seen. I find myself saying, "Hey, come on. Come on. Are you feeling called?" I hear women all the time when they say, "I just learned we were" I mean, okay, so the Google, "Black woman, maternity," or "pregnant," or whatever, it's not all bad because what the Black women are finding, it's a catch 22. It's like six in one hand, half a dozen in the other. Because sadly, when they go and look for relevant information about, if it's some cultural context, they see, "Oh, Black women are dying." Some of them are saying, "I was looking up something about pregnancy and I found out we're dying. I found out that we are dying and our babies are dying." They're like, "What can I do? What can I do?" I try to use that and say, "Come on. Let's go back."
Julia Jones:
"Motivate us." Yeah.
Andrea Little Mason:
"Let's go back." And so, most of what I do is inspired... I'll say a lot of what I do is inspired by the fact that my mother is not here in a physical form, wasn't here to show me exactly what to do with my babies to help me, whatever else...
... and then I didn't ask my grandmothers. I did not ask them. "What exactly... What did you do?" I mean, they were right there. Julia, every time I think about it, it's one of those things where I often say "I don't live with the regrets." That's just one of those things that doesn't serve me well. But if there's any regret that I have, it is that I did not appreciate and understand fully the gift that my grandmothers were. Neither of them... My 80-year-old grandmother, she never learned to read and write. That was my father's mother. My mother's mother, I think she got to sixth grade and neither her nor my grandfather ever went past the sixth grade in school. In their mind because we were educated, we were this, we were that and the other... We didn't want to hear their old way of doing things. I just wish I had known better.
Julia Jones:
So, for people who are listening at home, go and do that.
Andrea Little Mason:
Yes.
Julia Jones:
Whoever's listening, if you have access to elders, go and ask them your important questions because you never know if or when you'd get a chance, because like you said, your mother died quite young. She must have been quite young?
Andrea Little Mason:
Yes. She was.
Julia Jones:
You just never know when that's going to happen. There's so few of these traditions. The other thing I'm hearing from you is, it's a little bit like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. You might be missing a few pieces. You kind of will have to guess, "Well, I can guess from these surrounding pieces that this is the bit that should be there." We can't expect through this process of colonization, globalization, slavery, industrialization, there's so many big impacts in the world over the past few hundred years, we can't expect to be able to access pristine language and culture exactly as it was practiced. What we can do is find that energy and that intention and just fill in the gaps. I love this. Go on a relentless search and ask everyone.
How have you relentlessly searched for your cultural story around birth? (25:08)
Andrea Little Mason:
Yeah. I just got off the phone earlier with someone and I'm like... I'm always pulling on people. There are people that know this piece and that piece, and it's actually okay to get that piece and not feel like somehow, "Oh, this is not authentic because I don't know at all." My grandmothers both... they're about 30 miles apart in location. While they did the same things, my father who was not in the "country" as we called it, they wrapped my Big Mama with an old sheet. In the country part... they were saying in the very rural area, they were saying, "Well, we used girdles after birth. That's what we did." I would've thought it would've been opposite, but it served the same purpose to close her up. So there might be things that are done differently... Slightly differently, but there is a thread that goes through all of it.
I didn't know... My sisters... and I have two sisters. I'm a middle girl, and then there's an older and a younger. We didn't know much, but something in us... We knew that after we had our babies, that we needed to be there for each other. Literally, hundreds of miles away from each other, we would... Whoever was having the baby, it was like, "Okay, you go the first week, I can take my vacation. I can take holiday from work. You go the first week, I'll go the second week." We pieced together what we knew. She knew that I didn't need to be cooking. They knew I didn't need to be cooking and I didn't need to worry about my other children, and I didn't need to worry about cleaning up. They did all of those things. I love what you said about the jigsaw puzzle because truly, most African-Americans are jigsaw puzzles. We're all pieced together and we're intermingled together.
I think one of the biggest challenges is to not do what was done 50 years ago that landed us in this place. I'm grateful for the technology, the medical interventions, for those that need them. When we try to recreate something to perfection like, "I'm going to make this. I'm going to do this exactly the way this is, or that is." Sometimes we focus more on that than we do appreciating the integration of all of that we have at our disposal to choose from. We can choose from so many different things. We can say, "Oh, okay, that's a wonderful thing." You look around the world and you see what people are doing in postpartum. There's a shift... There's small little details that might be different, but they all end up serving the same kind of purpose. Reclaiming is... and really listening to this ancestral call. I love what you said, it's more about the intention.
It's more about the energy that you bring to it than it is about knowing a specific prayer someone prayed or "This is the exact thing that was done. I don't know why, but I know how to do it." It's not necessarily that part of it. It's about understanding. I heard someone say this once, they were saying... I think they were generally talking about African ancestry and they were saying, "We shouldn't seek to recreate what was." Always tell people to take the best of what they had to offer. Take the best, the most amazing things of what they had to offer. The things we've learned, let's build upon them, but not necessarily to recreate what they've done, but to take the energy of what they did.
For example, the whole context of serving, the whole context of whatever. We live in a different world now where we are a bit more distant from nuclear families, it's not the same. You take the best of it and you build. It's very unlikely that we're going to be able to recreate what was 50 years ago in the United States with Black women. It's just not going to happen. We did it out of necessity. These women, they knew all kinds of things. They knew herbalist things. My father would say that the midwife was the one that you called when you hurt yourself. They knew how to heal you. They knew how to do whatever. Okay, well now we have other options and things we know about. We have access to different things. We don't necessarily recreate it. If we stood on the energy and stood on everything that they were and we built upon it, we could do amazing things. We could do amazing things.
Are you able to share any of the postpartum traditions that you’ve learned? (30:36)
Julia Jones:
I love it. I love it. Are you able to share any of the sort of postpartum traditions that you've learned? Or is that sort of secret women's business?
Andrea Little Mason:
I mean, there are a lot of things that... It's amazing because, for example, when Layla B. talked about "closing the bones" and things, I've learned things from some, that I call, "continental Africans," those that are born and raised on the African continent. I've learned some things and some things that I do with... That look exactly like what is done as far as closing her up and literally going from head all the way down her body. She's from South Africa and she taught me this. She said, "this is what we do. This is how we massage her." There was also a context, not just of using this material to close her, to pull her together, not just doing it in that context, but there was also the context where she was like, "You know, you really need to allow your energy... Allow yourself to feel where this mom is. Allow yourself to feel that."
Some of it is very specific. There are teas and things... When it comes to teas and postpartum drinks and things like that, and things that people can drink, I don't often recommend much because I know that that's particular to different situations. I don't just say, "Okay, take this. Take that. Take the other..." I'll work with someone that I know really works in herbalism, and I'll say, "Okay, this is this mom's situation, this is where she is." and they might have a specific need. The things that I do know, the belly binding, even the therapy of wearing and carrying your baby, those kinds of things are really things that have proven to really be soothing to moms who, for whatever reason, it's like, "huh, I make Sankofa wraps." I call them "Sankofa wraps," and I make these long six-yard long wraps. I teach moms how to use those to bind their bellies. I teach them how to use them even while they're pregnant. I teach them how to carry their babies with it. We use it for a bunch of different things.
Is there a cultural piece that is different when supporting African-American mothers? (33:23)
The postpartum, honestly... Because most of the women that I work with are working moms, so I find myself that... I have one, she's going back to work next week. The question is always... I'll put it this way. She got home, she was in the hospital for about a week. I went and visited her a couple of times... But she got home. I'm checking on her, "How are you?" and she's like, "I had to cook... I to figure out food for the family." Now it seems strange because the ideal would be that she would be in the bed, that someone would be there serving her and all these other things. The truth of the matter, for me, if I'm honest, when it comes to a lot of the women that I end up helping, it's a different kind of connection than what I would want. I would love to be able to go and just be in that servant role.
What it actually ends up looking like for me, because the value that's not quite there yet for this postpartum care... What it actually looks like is that I'll go... I will have time where I pamper... I just call it "pampering." In the United States, we have all kinds of laws. If you say "massage," if you say whatever, everything has a law, something to it, some type of whatever. I do 'mommy pampering' and she's on the floor, and it's the closing with the material, it's the massaging, it's everything. It's words of affirmation spoken over her. All those things happen. There are women that are very hesitant about... And I hate to say it like "all Black women," or "African-American women," but I'm going to be honest with you, Julia, the truth of the matter is...
and I had to say this at a conference I spoke at once. I told them three things. I said, "African-American women are less likely to have a stranger come in their home and clean it for them. African-American women are less likely to have a stranger come in their home and cook for them. African-American women are less likely to have someone that's a stranger to them come to their birth, care for their baby, all these things that doulas see as a universal kind of thing." There's a bit of hesitation there. It is very cultural. I'm very careful when I go into mom's space. I feel her out because you don't just walk into her home and say, "Oh, I got this. I'll do..." It's just different.
A lot of what I end up doing for them, understanding this cultural piece that is different, I'll see if she welcomes me in this whatever space. Maybe the baby's staying in her room and I say, "Oh, would you like me to come in here?" Because some people are like, "No, I'll bring it out." Believe it or not, this is how... It's a big step to allow somebody to come into their space. Even though postpartum is very vulnerable times, some are still very mindful of space. When I look around, I say, "Oh, what have you been doing lately?" Because it's really hard to get them to sit down.
It's really hard for a lot of things. I mean, it just wasn't a luxury. A lot of times you'll hear the, "oh, you're lazy." You get all this feedback. I understand it, and I don't try to make them do that. I just say, "Oh, what are you up to? Oh, why don't you sit down and let me fold the baby's clothes?" "Yeah, I had to get this and then..." "Let me do that for you." “Well, I have all these things here..." "Well, let me do that for you." Honestly, that's what a lot of my postpartum work ends up looking like. "What can I help you do? What can I help you do?"
Julia Jones:
There is a big cultural... You have to be very culturally aware... We have a similar kind of situation, obviously, with our aboriginal people in Australia, with the history of the Stolen Generation.
Andrea Little Mason:
Really?
Julia Jones:
Yes.
Andrea Little Mason:
I wasn't aware. I was not aware.
Julia Jones:
Because we had the Stolen Generation not that long ago. One of the biggest concerns for aboriginal women having babies is that they're going to be seen as a "not good enough" mum, and they'll have their baby taken away. There is a real fear of not looking completely capable, competent on top of everything. I think probably within their own community, it's different. They'd have their families around them. But in terms of coming in as a stranger or as a professional, there's definitely very much a concern that if you're in a position of authority, and particularly if you're a white person, who are you reporting to? Are you secretly really spying on me? Babies still do get taken away from aboriginal mothers in Australia at a much higher rate than the white population. It is a genuine concern. It's obviously a different cultural situation, but I think I can understand that you really have to be very, very aware of who you are working with, and of not coming in with preconceived ideas of how things should look or be, or how she should be behaving, so...
Andrea Little Mason:
Or how she should receive what you're doing. Because what I find is, after consistency of that... I mean, and it will take weeks, consistently, "How are you today? What are you feeling?” “I'm really frustrated today." "Tell me what's frustrating you today." After a while I would just say, "Hey, is there anything I can do?" Now it wasn't like pulling teeth, it was like, "I would love it if you would come help me do this." “I would love it if you would come..." Whatever... I'd say, "Oh, you haven't had a rub down..." That's what I'll say, "You haven't had a rub down lately, huh?" "Oh, I would love it if you would do that for me. I would love it if you would do this for me." Then it's like they're more open. Although it's not... It's really challenging because you can be there and you can do for that mom in that space.
But I'll always hear, "Can you please come and tell my husband, my guy that? Can you come tell him? Because a lot of times..." Or I will help them walk through scenarios. I said, "You have to tell your friends." Might be other Black women, "You have to tell your friends that you are three weeks postpartum. Your child can't participate in that because you're the only transportation. Is that what you're feeling?" "Well, I really don't want to disappoint anyone and I really don't." You can do what you do to help while you're there with them, but then when you leave...
Julia Jones:
Yeah.
How do you help people embrace rest, particularly in light of the impact of slavery? (40:45)
Andrea Little Mason:
I called back and I said, "How are you? What did you do? How have you been?" "I had to take this one to do that one," or "I had to leave and not..." "It's okay. So, you are resting now?" A lot of it is just really, honestly, for me, for those that are having a hard time really embracing this postpartum period, because they always had to get up and do what they had to do. "I have to... I got it. I'll deal with it." It's just helping them embrace the notion that "It's okay if you rest. It's okay..." Many people will talk about, "Oh, during slavery, and it never stopped..." And "During Jim Crow... During segregated times, we had to get up and we had to do what we had to do." Sometimes the mothers will say that, "I never got to rest that long. I never got to do whatever." It's really about helping them embrace that.
From me, sometimes they'll look at me, they'll say, "Well, no, she said that this is normal. It's normal to still feel fatigued right now. It's normal to still feel a little tired like I need rest." Sometimes they just really want permission, if that's a thing. "Can someone give me permission to be tired and to say, 'I want to rest'. Can someone just say it's okay." A lot of times, even though their postpartum period doesn't look the way I would love for it to look, sometimes it's just a matter of me saying, "That's really normal" and to explain, "Your body's done this and that. Your body is doing this and it's adjusting and your hormones are adjusting. I can understand why you feel this way." Sometimes that's the work and I look at it as, because I can't make this woman do it, maybe it'll be something that someone can share with their daughter. Maybe the rebuilding and the reclaiming is, "I want to help my daughter this way. I want to do this this way." Maybe that's something. I look at it like that.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, that's right. Small steps. We just get it back one puzzle piece at a time, don't we?
Andrea Little Mason:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Julia Jones:
So, if people are listening at home and want to learn more about what you do...
Andrea Little Mason:
Yay!
Tell us more about what you do to help African-American women reclaim your birth rights? (43:19)
Julia Jones:
Tell us what you do?
Andrea Little Mason:
Oh, where do I start? My greatest focus is on encouraging African-American women, women of African descent in the US, to reclaim our birth rights. They were only 50 years ago. It's not that far away. My website is drdoula.com. There I have something I call "Birth HERstory." Those are stories that I publish about experiences of Black women. Some older Black women, some younger, some midwives, things like that.
I also do Sankofa Birth Ambassador workshops. People are like, "Is that a doula?" Not really. Amazingly, like every other word, it seems to do with... Birth ambassador means servant. It's more about helping... There are women that contact me from all different places, with all different backgrounds, and sometimes they just don't know where to start. In the United States, the birth culture can seem a bit antagonistic for Black women. It's not because anyone means for it to be that way. It just feels that way sometimes to them.
My goal is to stop the bleed of Black women that are trying to get into birth. If you're interested in it, let me help you. Let me help you get your feet wet. Let me help you, introduce you to some things, remind you of some things, help you get yourself grounded so that you know what you'll face in birth culture. Someone this week just said, "It was really challenging. I know that the white women in the room, they meant well. I was the only Black woman in the room at this particular training, and they were saying, “Oh, we're so glad you're here. People need you. Black women are dying',” or whatever. She said, "I don't know why. That just felt so strange to me because that wasn't really why I was there. I was there because I felt this calling to it. What I was reminded of was that we're dying."
People don't always get that. People don't always understand that. At the same time, they don't mean any harm. The Sankofa Birth Ambassador workshops is just an opportunity... It's a virtual workshop and it's an opportunity for people... and not just for women of African descent specifically, but anyone that's searching to be connected to culture, the culture of their ancestral roots. I want to help facilitate that because that is the thing in the US, it's like, "Oh, kumbaya, we're all one. It doesn't matter. Our differences don't matter." Often people of diverse cultures are like, "Wait a minute, it does matter what my differences are." That's Sankofa Birth Ambassador workshop, and I'm having... I usually do these things in person... help people in person, but it's the first time I'm doing it virtually. I'm very excited about that. Starting in October.
This is also an in line with work that my husband and I do. We have a non-for-profit organization called 'Harmonic Connections Plus where we have sought to reconnect people within just indigenous roots. To understand the importance of the merging of what is modern with what is indigenous for the best results in so many areas. In that we deal with indigenous knowledge. We've done work and collaborations in South Africa with an indigenous knowledge center at a university, and we are very excited about that. That's just another way that I get to connect with birth around the world and get really excited about all of that. drdoula.com... It's very simple, drdoula.com. People can find out more about what I do.
Julia Jones:
I love it.
Andrea Little Mason:
Yeah.
Julia Jones:
That's amazing.
Andrea Little Mason:
Yeah, very exciting. Thank you. I mean, it's amazing. You've inspired me so much, more than you know. I love knowing that on the other side of the world where you're starting your day and I'm ending my day, there's this clarion call that says, "Answer the call. Listen... Connect with your ancestors. Connect. Connect." I think it's a wonderful thing. It excites me so much to know that. You're pretty amazing in the work that you do. I've enjoyed getting to know the work that you do. It's awesome. It's amazing. It's something to know that... Sometimes when you're doing the work that you're doing, you can feel like you're alone. Listening to you was one of the first times I said, "Ah, wow. We're all out here saying the same things."
Julia Jones:
I know! The internet is just amazing, isn't it? To be able to find other people. Yeah, I agree.
Andrea Little Mason:
It's amazing. So excited.
Julia Jones:
I do feel like... I've been doing postpartum work for about 10 years now. I've definitely seen, even just in the last three or five years, I'm definitely seeing a revival. I really think...
Andrea Little Mason:
Yes.
Julia Jones:
I call it the "postpartum renaissance," because we really are getting back in touch with these traditions all over the world. I've even noticed a lot of really... There's a lot more mainstream books about these kinds of topics now. It's a lot more blogs, a lot more women sharing their stories just on social media and things. I agree. It's coming. We are rising up.
Andrea Little Mason:
We are. We are rising, and we are taking our place, because I tell people when I get on my little rants, I said, "We save ourselves. We heal ourselves." Throughout history, a lot of times when I'm talking, I'm speaking like to an African-American group, and I'll say, "We heal ourselves. We save ourselves." The truth is, like you talk about reaching back to your ancestral past, if we go back far enough, all of us have had to heal ourselves. We've all had to be in that place where we healed ourselves. Women played such an important role in that. In healing, in keeping the family healthy and whole and all of those things.
As we place more value on that, I just believe the world will do some amazing things. Like there'll be changes that we see that can't come about in any other way until we embrace this again. Embrace it for what it is, embrace it, accept whatever we need to accept. Sometimes it's like, "Oh, I was lied to." I felt that at one point. "I was lied to." Now embrace it. What you can control, you control. What you can't, see if you can influence it. Embrace it and begin to teach our daughters. This renaissance that you talk about is here. We just have to go with it and we have to be bold enough to stand and do this work, accept it and receive it.
Julia Jones:
Yes, definitely the receiving as well. You talk a lot about how it's difficult sometimes working with clients who aren't ready to receive, but we need to be able to learn to do that ourselves too. So... Yeah.
Andrea Little Mason:
Definitely.
What’s the one thing you want to say to people considering supporting mothers? (51:29)
Julia Jones:
Awesome. Have you got anything else to add?
Andrea Little Mason:
Just accept the call. Just accept the call. Don't run from it. I'll be honest, when I finished my doctorate, I said, "Why in the world would I want to go into a field, birth work? What? I can do a lot of things and be held in all this esteem and in all of these things, and I'm being called to help moms with babies?" I didn't have a very high... I didn't think very much of it. I walked away from it for two years. I was like, "Forget this." But here I am again. All I'll say is, answer the call in your own way.
Whoever is listening, what is that part that you are supposed to play? What is the part that you're supposed to play? Whatever part that is that you are supposed to play, play that part. Play that role. Understand the impact that you are having on this generation, on the people closest to you. This work radiates. When you are there for a mom and her family and you are like blessing that entry of this new person in the family, when you are able to do that, you are impacting generations. It is time for us to answer that call, to impact the generations. Answer the call to heal ourselves and to save ourselves. That's what I would say.
Julia Jones:
I love it. I love it. I don't even know what to say in response. That's just perfect. I'm lost for words. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing your story and your message with all of us. We'll stay in touch...
Andrea Little Mason:
Definitely.
Julia Jones:
Anyone who wants to go and take a look, go to drdoula.com
Andrea Little Mason:
Absolutely.
Julia Jones:
Awesome. Thank you so much. See you later.
Andrea Little Mason:
Thank you. Bye.
