A new St. Louis-based program, Dads to Doulas, seeks to empower Black men in all aspects of fatherhood — both to enrich their parenting journeys and to advocate for the health of their partners and children.
Story By Cheryl Baehr
Visuals By Michael Thomas
In 2017, Brad Edwards and the mother of his son and daughter faced a nightmare scenario he prays no expectant parent ever has to experience. Excited to welcome twins into the world, their joy turned to grief when the babies were delivered stillborn, an experience that would go on to shape Edwards’ view of fatherhood, the birthing process, and mental health care, and instill in him a sense of mission that he hopes will help other Black men through their parenting journeys.
“When you look at the statistics on Black women dying during pregnancy or Black infant mortality, it blows you away,” Edwards says. “We think everything is going to just breeze by and be a guarantee, but it’s not. I tell guys that they have to be fully present for their partner. Anything can happen in that delivery room. My work was born out of my own traumatic experience, and I want to be able to save as many other people from that as possible.”
Since that tragic day, Edwards has been turning his pain into purpose, first, through his work with the multifaceted platform Dear Fathers, its mental health program, STR8 Mental, and now through a new Dear Fathers initiative, Dads to Doulas, which aims to prepare Black men for all aspects of fatherhood through education about pregnancy, the birthing process, and the postpartum stage. Launched in late July 2024 in St. Louis, the free, six-week Dads to Doulas program will give its 25 participants hands-on doula training so that they can be informed and present partners in order to help ensure positive outcomes for their families. Edwards and his team will then take what they learn from this pilot course and expand the program to other cities across the country.
Brad Edwards (featured in the top right photo), kicks off the Dads to Doulas program at an event at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in July 2024.
Dads to Doulas is the latest example of how Edwards and his partners are using their Dear Fathers platform to transform Black fatherhood in St. Louis and beyond. Founded by longtime friends and St. Louis natives Jesse Alex and Lamar Johnson Jr., Dear Fathers was born out of the pain associated with not having present fathers in their own lives growing up. The men frequently found themselves talking about their experiences and what kind of support they wished they’d had as children, and they knew they weren’t alone. In 2019, while Alex and Johnson Jr. were living in Dallas and the San Francisco Bay Area, respectively, those conversations formalized into Dear Fathers, which describes itself as the premier media platform for Black fatherhood with a mission to “create an ecosystem of Black men that fosters community and overall development for Black families” through online content, events, programming, a podcast, and other resources.
Edwards found solace in Dear Fathers when he and his children’s mother were preparing for the birth of their daughter in 2020. The content not only spoke to him — it dovetailed with his own work in community organizing and mentorship, and felt like something he was meant to be a part of. Edwards connected with Alex and Johnson Jr., and quickly became a partner with them in the platform. One of his first initiatives was using Dear Fathers as an umbrella organization for his mental health platform, STR8 Mental, which provides Black men access to mental health support.
“My goal in starting STR8 Mental was for guys to have access to mental health providers,” Edwards says. “The majority of Black men have never talked to a therapist and don’t understand what therapy looks like, so I wanted to create a space where they could talk to providers who look like them, let them know what therapy can look like, and give them a snapshot that they can find someone who has cultural competency on a foundational level and will understand them.”
Doulas Kyra Betts (pictured top right opposite Brad Edwards) and Charity Bean (pictured bottom right, in the center of the photo) are leading education in the Dads to Doulas program in St. Louis.
The day he hosted the first session of STR8 Mental on the Dear Fathers platform, Edwards experienced another momentous occasion: the birth of his daughter in May 2020. Still haunted by their previous loss, Edwards was determined to educate himself and his children’s mother as much as possible so they could feel better prepared for the birthing process and equipped to navigate unforeseen circumstances as they might arise. He had a good friend who was a doula, and though his children’s mother was not ready to have a formalized arrangement with her, Edwards asked if she might share her knowledge with him so he could serve as an advocate during labor and delivery. Together, they created what Edwards describes as a playbook, filled with information like acceptable blood oxygen, blood pressure, and breath per second levels, what sort of medications they could expect to be administered and what their effects might be.
Although his friend was not in the delivery room with them when his daughter was born, she was available by phone and coached them along their journey. A few years later, when their son was born, Edwards and his children’s mother not only had a doula in the delivery room — they had a doula, a night nurse, and other support systems in place to help them in their parenting journeys.
It was an eye-opening experience for Edwards. While his work with Dear Fathers up to that point focused on the parenting, social, and mental health sides of Black fatherhood, he understood that another way the platform could have an impact would be to provide technical training for fathers. From that realization, Dads to Doulas was born.
“It’s good to have other people show up for the family, but the father needs to be a big advocate and be present,” Edwards says. “People are now finally talking about their experiences with their health providers and miscarriages — what they had to endure and go through, even if they are highly educated and have all the resources. As guys, we have to do our part in protecting our families from the start, and that is what this program is all about. It’s training and building up advocates so guys can be protectors in these situations.
Dads to Doulas, which welcomed its first participants in July 2024, is unique in its hands-on, interactive approach. Utilizing the simulation rooms at Goldfarb School of Nursing at Barnes–Jewish College, participants engage in role-playing activities that immerse them in the labor and delivery process and learn about different health metrics so that they can develop their own partner delivery playbooks. The course also teaches the history of birth; physical comfort measures that partners can do to help the birthing parent; how the body, brain, and hormones change during pregnancy and the postpartum stage; how to create a birth plan; infant care; and education around postpartum depression and anxiety.
Edwards and his Dear Fathers partners understand that the Dads to Doulas program is important at the individual and family levels, but it has a much broader impact. By providing advocacy and support during the pregnancy, labor, delivery, and postpartum stages, the program hopes to address the staggering statistics surrounding Black maternal and infant mortality and how it directly relates to the systemic racism that affects unborn Black children and mothers. According to a report published by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) in 2022, the ratio of pregnancy-related deaths for Black women was more than three times higher than the ratio of deaths for white women. And Black infants born in Missouri are more than twice as likely to die as white infants, according to DHSS.
“We want to build community and give people information that they normally would not receive, and we want to do it in a way that is easily digestible,” Edwards says. “This is not a shirt-and-tie uptight situation. It’s a good time. You’re receiving real, pivotal info, but in such a cool way that you will want to come back to this and look forward to it.
Since he began his work with the Dads to Doulas program, Edwards has been heartened by the support both this particular initiative and the larger Dear Fathers project have received from the St. Louis community. Although the platform has international reach — Dear Fathers is now the largest Black fatherhood platform in the world with 340,000 Instagram followers — Edwards has been impressed by the way the region’s community organizations have been willing to connect with them and offer up help. He points to BJC letting the program use their space at the Goldfarb School of Nursing for Dads to Doulas, Generate Health being a supportive partner in their work, and even the St. Louis Cardinals, who are hosting a Dear Fathers Night at Busch Stadium on September 7.
“There are so many people who care in this region, and we are really starting to see the level of collaboration in this area of (Black fatherhood) grow so much,” Edwards says. “People are reaching out to work with us and others. The idea is, ‘Let’s not be in our bubble; let’s grow together.’ Whether it’s our work or even collecting school supplies, people are doing great things within the community to support Black families. It’s been very impactful and motivating to see the work that is going on from other community partners and the way they have been open to embracing us.”
Edwards is confident that those who attend the Dads to Doulas program will feel this support. Although his goal is for five of the 25 participants to go on to receive doula certification, he considers it a success that people are willing to even show up, because it demonstrates that Black fathers are being empowered to become advocates for their partners and their children at this crucial stage. And even if they don’t participate in the formal training, he still encourages fathers to take an active role.
“Even if you’re not going to come and do the training with us, we want you to understand pregnancy, labor, delivery, and postpartum,” Edwards says. “Do a little more research and just understand a little more so that you can be an advocate. We so often leave men out of this conversation, but it’s very important for us to talk about our experiences and share those with others.”
A father and his two children at the Dads to Doulas launch event in July 2024.
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