Angela Tatum Malloy (pictured left) rolls up her sleeves to reveal tattoos written in curling cursive on each arm. One reads “determination” and the other reads “persistence.”
“This two-word mantra is what I live by and it serves as a reminder to people that I’m not leaving until I do what I set out to do,” she said on a spring afternoon in her downtown Fayetteville office.
As the founder and executive director of Momma’s Village, a nonprofit collective devoted to maternal care, Angela is determined to improve health outcomes for Black mothers and their infants through breastfeeding education and doula care.
She is also training a network of lactation consultants and doulas to reach more women who need maternity support.
Launched just eight years ago, Momma’s Village is already making a difference in the lives of new mothers and is a vibrant presence in Fayetteville’s colorful downtown scene.
“We are building a cohort of women who want to practice birth care in their communities,” Angela said. “This is not me doing it alone, many others are helping advance our mission.”
One of those women is Regine Lesane. Regine was already well into her pregnancy in 2022 when she realized she needed support. As a first-time mom, she didn’t know what to expect and felt she wasn’t getting enough information from her health care provider.
“Angela and my other doula, Jasmine Johnson, prepared me for the delivery of my daughter, Jordyn, and helped with her birth,” she said. “I was in my third trimester when I learned about Momma’s Village, and my experience was kind of rushed but I learned a lot.”
Today, Jordyn (pictured right) is an energetic 18-month-old toddler with an engaging personality. On a warm day in April, she was happily blowing kisses to anyone available to catch them and blow them back.
Regine, 30, became so enamored with Momma’s Village that she has become a certified doula, too. She has contracted with the UNC Health System and is preparing to start working in Moore and Cumberland counties. But it’s not just her personal experiences that drew her in. Regine has a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in health care administration and is a certified medical assistant at Cape Fear Medical Center.
For Regine, her work with Momma’s Village is just the beginning.
“Since I am already working in the medical field, I plan to take my doula certification a step further and become a midwife,” she said.
It started with breastfeeding support
Angela, 54, admits she hated science in school and never imagined she would forge a career in health care. Instead, she turned to business and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from Fayetteville State University, focusing on accounting.
In a roundabout way, it was Angela’s own experience as a mom to five children that led her to become a doula, starting with her oldest daughter, who was having problems breastfeeding her newborn. Despite receiving guidance from Angela, her daughter visited a lactation consultant who gave the same advice that Angela had provided.
That visit sparked an idea.
Angela joined a local support group for Black women who breastfeed and discovered she had a talent for sharing her expertise. She enrolled in the Pathway 2 Lactation Consulting Training Program at the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute at UNC where she studied and passed an exam to earn an International Board of Lactation Consultants credential.
“I knew Angela was going to be a mover and a shaker, and I knew she was going to do great things in her community,” said CGBI director Catherine Sullivan. “When she started Momma’s Village, she offered a Pathway 3 [Mentorship] program to train others in her community to become certified lactation consultants.” Then Angela took her education program one step further.
“I’ve always had a goal to be the central hub of knowledge and information about Black women breastfeeding, and I started getting calls asking if I offered doula services,” she said. “But I didn’t know what a doula was.”
She learned a doula is a trained professional who provides information as well as physical and emotional support to pregnant women before, during, and shortly after childbirth to help them have a healthy and gratifying experience.
After receiving doula training through HealthConnect One, a national organization that offers education and support for community birth workers, Angela began providing full birth care services. She began training other doulas in 2018.
Community doulas fill health care gaps
Today, Momma’s Village provides community-based doulas who perform all the typical birth care services, and help new mothers navigate other local resources, such as mental health support, food needs, transportation, and childcare.
She also focuses on helping local communities alleviate high maternal and infant mortality rates, preterm births, and other issues, like racial disparities and implicit biases in health care services, which disproportionately impact Black mothers, according to a study published by MDPI’s scientific, peer-reviewed journal Healthcare.
Studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that in 2021, Black women had a significantly higher likelihood of dying during pregnancy or right after giving birth than white women in the U.S. The maternal mortality rate for Black women was 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births compared to 26.6 deaths among white women.
Their babies don’t fare much better. Mortality rates for Black newborns are 10.6 deaths per 1,000 births, compared to 4.36 deaths per 1,000 births among white babies, according to the CDC. Prenatal care is key to improving these statistics, said Dr. Jennifer Green, director of the Cumberland County Department of Public Health. But compounding the problem is the shortage of OB-GYN providers.
“Physician shortages delay prenatal care for women, and we’ve had lots of conversations with the folks at the hospital, our doula providers, and the Cumberland County Partnership for Children, around how to address this challenge our community is facing,” Green said. “Doulas can be a big part of improving maternity health outcomes in communities because we know women who have a doula are more likely to get prenatal care.”
Diara Fitzgerald, 26, lives in Moore County and is the mother of two daughters ages 3 and 16 months. After giving birth to her oldest daughter, she was having trouble breastfeeding, and her pediatrician referred her to Momma’s Village for lactation support.
“Angela taught me different positions to help make my baby comfortable,” Diara said. “I learned about how to pay attention to my baby’s feeding cues and that breastfeeding should not be a stressful situation.”
Diara is now using those instructions to help her feed her younger daughter and credits Angela for helping her understand the role of maternal health.
“I would say wherever you are in your journey, you’ll be heard and accepted at Momma’s Village,” she said.
Last March, Angela’s own daughter Taylor Johnson, 30, gave birth to her fifth child, a baby girl named Nori. Angela was Taylor’s doula.
Taylor suffers from postpartum depression and says she can’t imagine what she would have done without doula support when she returned home after Nori was born.
“It makes a difference to actually have someone available to give you a break and help you when you feel overwhelmed,” Taylor said.
Taylor, who has completed her doula training and plans to open a practice when Nori is a little older, has her eye on becoming a nurse.
Immersed in downtown culture
With Momma’s Village, Angela is an engaged member of Fayetteville’s business community, always seeking new resources, opportunities for partnerships, and ways to promote healthy moms and babies.
She’s part of a monthly task force with the Cumberland County Department of Public Health to establish connections in the community, facilitate childbirth and breastfeeding classes, and participate in community health fairs.
She is also active in the monthly “Coffee with the Mayor” meetings, an initiative started by Mayor Mitch Colvin, which brings nonprofit organizations together and opens avenues for collaboration.
On Aug. 26, 2019, Mayor Mitch Colvin proclaimed the City of Fayetteville as a Breastfeeding Friendly City and in 2022, Colvin proclaimed the week of March 29 through April 4 as Community Based Doula Week. A native of Fayetteville, Angela says she loves the downtown community and rarely misses an opportunity to participate in downtown happenings, ranging from wine walks to 4th Friday events and festivals.
Momma’s Village occupies offices on the second floor of a historic building on the corner of Hay and Donaldson streets. The space resembles a spa, featuring soft lighting, original artwork, and comfortable furniture. One room is devoted to baby services, and another is an apothecary where Angela sells vitamins, organic ciders, and syrups, including her popular elderberry syrup, a powerful antioxidant, used to bolster the immune system. It’s an inviting place where mothers are welcome to nurse their babies and change diapers.
“The downtown businesses have been wonderful in supporting me,” she said. “Anytime we sponsor an event, our fellow business owners help advertise it, support our work, and make downtown a real community.”
Molly Arnold, owner of the colorful Rude Awakening Coffee House on Hay Street, applauds Angela’s zeal and willingness to speak up on behalf of women.
“I think her dedication to the welfare and health care for pregnant Black moms is vital,” Molly said. “It’s great having her downtown, where she shares her clients with the rest of us.”
She recalls a Halloween event a few years ago that featured a pumpkin decorating contest. Angela decorated her pumpkins and arranged them so the large ones appeared to be nursing the small ones.
Last January, Angela joined the 100 Professional Black Women in Black photoshoot to celebrate Fayetteville’s ranking as the sixth best place in the U.S. for Black-owned businesses.
And in 2023, she was named USA Today’s Woman of the Year in North Carolina.
A powerful organization for the community
Mary Hinson, a Fayetteville relationship counselor and owner of Live Well Counseling Solutions, is part of the Momma’s Village community. She provides mental health counseling for new moms and works through her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, to provide support in other ways, including advocacy.
Mary calls Momma’s Village a powerful and transformative organization for the community. She supports efforts to enact state and federal laws that would make life easier for expectant mothers, such as expanding Medicaid to cover services like doula care and lactation support, establishing and funding a Maternal Mortality Prevention Grant Program, and establishing implicit bias training for health care professionals who work in perinatal care. Legislation has been introduced in the N.C. General Assembly’s 2023-24 legislative session to support these services.
Mary says collaborating with Angela and Momma’s Village makes her feel stronger and more knowledgeable.
“I can go to her or tap into her resources for support, just like she can come to me for help locating mental health services for her clients,” she said. “More hands make the work lighter, and I’m always a big fan of collaboration.”
Diara Fitzgerald has joined fellow Momma’s Village clients Regine and Taylor in completing doula training and is working toward starting her own practice. All three moms personify how Angela’s work is paying off.
“I feel like I’ve come full circle,” Diara said. “Angela has become an important part of my story.”
Read CityView Magazine’s “The Downtown Issue” June e-edition here.
