The founder of Dads To Doulas advocates for black fathers

In 2017, Brad Edwards expected to grow to be a father of twins. Instead, he and his partner suffered an incalculable loss, each children were stillborn. Edwards, like far too many men, initially compressed and buried his feelings, but like a dam holding back a flood, he eventually broke down.

As Edwards said, he he burst into tears with your folks after talking to them about it while watching a football match.

“For years I had been carrying around all of the emotions that I had from my experiences, and it wasn’t until one day when I was sitting in the basement with my friends watching football that I started talking about it,” Edwards said.

“I began sobbing and couldn’t control my emotions. I just kept all the things inside. I desired to be there for my family, her family, her. “I just never had the opportunity to talk and share how I felt and the guilt of not knowing – how I felt like I had let her and those two boys down because I should have known better,” Edwards concluded.

Edwards ultimately turned his pain and tragedy into something positive, creating programs to support men with mental health, in addition to education about pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum care.

In 2020, Edwards’ work attracted the eye of Dear Fathers from St. Louis, a platform created to share stories of Black fatherhood.

The platform had Edwards’ concept in mind: It desired to create a resource for mental health information for Black people affected by the pandemic. Edwards agreed, and the launch of the platform coincided along with his daughter Carielle’s birthday, which was May 18, 2020.

As Edwards told the outlet, “With (the COVID-19 pandemic), we have seen that there are going to be many more gaps in Black and Brown communities, and we have also seen that there is more talk about mental health in society than ever before. The Black community,” Edwards said.

Following the success of this program, Edwards sought additional ways to assist educate Black fathers, ultimately launching the free six-week Dads to Doulas program in the summertime of 2024. This program, as he said, is near him.

“Through the experience of losing my twins, I realized there was a lot I didn’t know and a lot I didn’t have time to learn about,” Edwards said.

Edwards continued, “So before my next opportunity got here along, once I was preparing to offer birth to my daughter, I had already grow to be aware of what a doula was. One of my good friends is a doula. I said, “Okay, you have to help me create the manual.” What do I want to look for? What should its level be? What should I look for in relation to the placenta? So I wanted to teach myself on a couple of different issues to ensure that I used to be not only knowledgeable, but in addition an advocate because I do know that Black women die at much higher rates (Black women die in childbirth at thrice the speed) than every other race.

This education proved crucial for Edwards’ partner during Carielle’s birth. Although his partner didn’t necessarily want her plan to incorporate a doula, Edwards kept his friends who were doulas updated via group chat.

As a result, Edwards said, it helped him when his partner needed to return to the hospital for treatment of preeclampsia, which is often a characteristic complication of pregnancy hypertension, high levels of protein within the urine or other signs of organ damage. Failure to follow the recommendations may lead to death.

“I had never heard of or discovered about preeclampsia, but she (his partner) had to return to hospital because she had stroke-level preeclampsia. So for the primary 48 hours of my daughter’s life on this planet, once I got here home, I needed to do all the things myself because her mother went back to the hospital with life-threatening blood pressure problems,” Edwards said.

Edwards continued by emphasizing that men are deeply involved within the birthing process.

“It’s very vital for men to grasp what it’s like for Mom, how she’s been through this whole traumatic situation and that she really cannot understand why she feels the best way she does because her hormones are everywhere. . And that men also struggle with postpartum depression. “I think we not only save lives in the delivery room, but we also save relationships in the postpartum phase of life.”

According to Edwards, it is amazingly vital that men, especially black men, are motivated to assist their partners through the birthing process.

Edwards explained: “I would like us to truly change the game in health care and ensure that these families never have to suffer the same loss I suffered if it can be avoided. I want people to understand that our common experience needs to be shared. Every time I share my story with some of my brothers, it is therapeutic for me. I don’t want us to be so connected to our experiences that we can’t use them to empower not only ourselves but also someone else who needed to hear them.”