With the theme “African Americans and the Arts”, Black History Month 2024 gives us the opportunity to recognize black artists and their art that brings attention to the black maternal health crisis we are currently experiencing.
Cheyenne Varner is a certified birth and postpartum doula and founder of The Educated Birth, and Everyday Birth Magazine. Since 2016, she has supported and coached families through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum experiences in and beyond her home base in Richmond, VA. He has created hundreds of industry-changing illustrations and teaching tools for reproductive health professionals that are used today throughout the US and internationally.
She has attended and completed childbirth and postpartum support trainings with toLabor, Ancient Song Doula Trainings, and Doula Trainings International (DTI), completing her certification
with the DTI. She also completed additional training in Spinning Babies® and Dysfunctional Labor ManeuversSM. In 2023, her services to parents through The Educated Birth were recognized as an Official Perinatal Safe Spot by Common Sense Childbirth’s National Perinatal Task Force.
Her work has been used and/or featured by organizations including Babylist, Doula Trainings International, Birthing Advocacy Doula Training, The Birth Place Lab, Common Sense Childbirth, Inc, Hypnobabies, and more. Her core mission revolves around changing narratives about pregnancy, birth, and postpartum to make them more realistic, individualized, and inclusive. And he was happy to meet the parents
where they are and provide them with the highest quality and most accessible education to empower them for the best possible experience.
Cheyenne says her story is that when I became a birth worker in 2016, I *couldn’t find* happy and healthy images of Black pregnant women to include in my prenatal education. Most of the artwork and photographs I could find showed only/mostly white women. That led me to start illustrating and designing my own birth materials — and when I started sharing with other birthworkers online — I realized it wasn’t something I was just struggling to find — it was something I really wasn’t.
exist and many other people are searching, too.
The best stories, however, I believe come from the people who interacted with the work my team and I did. Here are some:
“”As my client’s 5-year-old daughter was leaving their OB visit, she asked me, “How did you know?” I replied, how do I know what? And she pointed to one of the pictures of a partner supporting the person in labor and said, “That’s mommy’s color, that’s daddy’s color and that’s the baby.” Representation is so important, thank you for your work!” – Anonymous
“Educated Birth makes my patients so happy!!!!! EVERY SINGLE PATIENT has had
questions about [our] poster. Pssst, even some nurses did it too!!!” – Lodz Joseph-Lemon, CNM
“… as a (secretly) pregnant non-binary person your account gives me so much hope and makes me feel so empowered. Everywhere I look… I feel like I don’t belong and I’m not safe… You’re the only account I follow that uses inclusive language and I’m grateful…” – Anonymous
“It wasn’t until I saw it that I realized that every single anatomical thing I was looking at was a white person. It really moved me.” – @alyssa_mayumi
The main message I want people to know is that representation is powerful and practically meaningful. The lack of inclusivity and accessibility in childbirth
ed has historically been connected to the poor maternal health outcomes we see. A renaissance of what childbirth looks, sounds, and feels like is needed — it’s an essential part of an equitable health system.
Learn more about how you can support this work to not only continue, but continue to grow — go to www.theeducatedbirth.com/support
