I believe that pregnancy and birth are sacred, unimaginably precious processes. The journey of labor and birth has unique potential to transform and empower women and their families.
I believe that every woman will find her way through these processes in the way that best serves her.
I believe that every woman deserves to be treated with respect, reverence, tenderness and dignity during her labor.
I believe that every woman's partner also deserves to be treated with respect, reverence, tenderness and dignity and offered gentle care and direction, if he desires or requires it. He is becoming a parent, too.
I believe that women and their babies do best when we trust the process of birth.
I believe that every woman is a perfect system for having her baby. I believe that this system is a closed system: anything we take out or put in affects the entire process.
I believe it is the right and responsibility of every pregnant couple to become informed and educated about their birthing options. The best decisions are made from a place of being wide-eyed and informed, rather than a place of fear or ignorance.
I believe that there is nothing that can be done to or for a woman in a hospital that might not be necessary at some point in someone's labor. I also believe that we do way too many of these things to way too many women when they are not necessary.
I believe that medical interventions are not evils, but rather tools. You buy them if you need them and leave them if you do not.
I believe it is a most profound privilege, an amazing and humbling bestowal of trust, to be invited to attend another family's birth. I am most blessed by the families I work with and the work I do.
Hello, my name is Debbie and I am a doula and childbirth educator in the Houston area where I have been learning about birth for more than 22 years. I have a bachelor's degree in psychology with a minor in training and development and I was an interpreter way back B. K. (Before Kids). I love being a childbirth educator and doula. It is the most amazing honor, the most profound bestowal of trust to be invited to join a couple during their preparations and to attend another family’s birth. I feel that everything I have ever done in my life has prepared me to do the work I now do with pregnant women. It is a calling to me, what I was meant to do and I am both humbled and proud that I have been entrusted with this work.
Became involved in local birth community in 1996 after the birth of my first child
Designed and developed a unique childbirth class curriculum to prepare couples for their home, hospital and birth center births
My articles have been published in Special Delivery (publication of the Association of Labor Assistants and Childbirth Educators), The Clarion (publication of the International Cesarean Awareness Network) and CAPPA Connection and blog
Teacher of free local classes offered by B.I.R.T.H.
Speaker and vendor at each of the annual BIRTH Fairs (Since 2000)
Frequent guest and guest-host of KPFT radio's Whole Mother (90.1 FM in Houston, Sundays, 7:30 p.m. or kpft.org to listen live) - Visit the Lagniappe tab on this site to hear some of my shows
Popular guest speaker at Baylor College of Medicine and Lone Star College
I had the great privilege of portraying Jillian in each of the 2006 to 2020 Houston productions of Karen Brody's play, Birth.
My most loved role is being mother to my two fabulous, formerly breastfed and homeschooled children.