A county grant initiative is aiming to increase access to doula services for uninsured and underinsured residents.
The Cumberland County Department of Public Health awarded two doula service organizations — Central Carolina Doulas and Divine Doula Goddess — $75,000 each to help provide wraparound pregnancy support services to all residents regardless of insurance coverage.
“When you as a professional have to turn away someone because they couldn’t afford the service, it’s very disappointing and hard,” Shatara Het Heru Bey, founder and owner of Divine Doula Goddess, told CityView. “So being able to call clients back and say ‘We have funding. You can get the services,’ is so beneficial and rewarding.”
Doulas provide non-clinical, physical and emotional support to pregnant people throughout their pregnancy and labor. Their services can range from birth planning to breathing exercises to help with housework during postpartum. On their websites, Central Carolina Doulas and Divine Doula Goddess both emphasize the education provided by doulas is intended to help pregnant people make informed decisions about their care.
Aida Algarin, a Fayetteville resident, founded and owns Central Carolina Doulas. The organization provides birth, post-partum, infant care and sibling care doula services in English and Spanish to Fayetteville residents. The group also serves residents across the state, including in Lumberton, Sanford, Cary and more.
At Divine Doula Goddess, Het Heru Bey and her team of doulas provide birth and post-partum doula services for pregnant people. Het Heru Bey also hosts a doula mentorship program — the next mentorship class starts this spring — for anyone looking to become a doula.
“We are excited to take this important step toward improving maternal and infant health outcomes in Cumberland County,” Jennifer Green, department director, said in a press release announcing the funding. “By partnering with Central Carolina Doulas and Divine Doula Goddess, we are providing essential support to pregnant residents who may otherwise face barriers to quality care.”
Greater access, better outcomes
Doula services are shown to improve birth outcomes, reducing the likelihood of a pregnant person giving birth preterm and needing a C-section, according to peer-reviewed studies. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has stated that doula services are associated with “improved outcomes for women in labor.”
Health Affairs Forefront, the blog for the peer-reviewed health policy journal Health Affairs, states that local doula services hold particular “significance for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)” who face higher rates of maternal mortality and birth complications. Black pregnant people in the U.S. are three times more likely to die from pregnancy complications than their white counterparts, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services found that over 45% of pregnancy-related deaths between 2018 and 2019 were among Black pregnant people.
Those statistics are why, at Divine Doula Goddess, Het Heru Bey, a Black and Indigenous woman, focuses on supporting pregnant people of color.
“Representation matters,” Het Heru Bey told CityView. “When it comes to Black women being represented by Black women, a lot of times, we share a lot of common issues or common struggles.”
Het Heru Bey said doulas are critical to improving birth outcomes since they are the most consistent support person throughout the person’s pregnancy. She said doulas can pick up on warning signs that rotating physicians might miss.
In Greensboro, North Carolina, those using doula services out of the YMCA’s Healthy Beginnings program were two times less likely to have birth complications, according to a study published in The Journal of Perinatal Education.
“This new initiative reflects our commitment to reducing health disparities and ensuring every resident has access to the support they need for a healthy pregnancy and birth,” Kirk deViere, chair of the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners, said in the press release.
The board is using money from the county’s 2025 fiscal year budget to fund the grants to Central Carolina Doulas and Divine Doula Goddess. It’s a financial commitment Commissioner Glenn Adams pushed for last summer to address Cumberland County’s lack of OB-GYN physicians.
As of 2018, the North Carolina Institute of Medicine found only 3.5 OB-GYNs, family medicine and certified nurse-midwives were practicing for every 10,000 residents of Cumberland County. The March of Dimes, a nonprofit focused on ending preventable maternal and infant health risks, found that county residents travel on average almost 30 miles to the nearest birthing hospital.
Doula services can be expensive. While Divine Doula Goddess’ Birth Doula Package costs $1,500, other doulas across the state can charge up to $2,000. The services are often not covered by insurance, requiring people to pay out of pocket to access them. In 2023, N.C. state representatives introduced a bill in the General Assembly to cover doula services for those on NC Medicaid, but it never made it out of the House.
“With this Cumberland County doula grant, we can now offer our labor and postpartum doula support services to families who otherwise would not be in the position to access them,” Algarin said in the press release. “This grant is a lifeline allowing us to stand in the maternal health gap and provide the compassionate support every family deserves.”
CityView Reporter Morgan Casey is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Morgan’s reporting focuses on health care issues in and around Cumberland County and can be supported through the CityView News Fund.
