The Minnesota Prison Doula Project offers pregnancy and parenting support for incarcerated women

Lindsay Harman is a Decorah resident who is a certified doula. A doula focuses on giving women physical and emotional support before, during, and after a woman has given birth, developing a relationship in post partum with the mother.

Doulas offer non-invasive care to the mothers through encouragement, emotional support, and wisdom for both labor and delivery. Doulas do not provide medical or emergency care but may be hands-on in many other ways.

As the women's population in prison is growing, so is the number of pregnant women in prison. Harman has been working with the Minnesota Prison Doula Project. The project provides education and doula support to incarcerated mothers in Minnesota. Harman, along with two other coworkers in the project, spoke at the Northeast Iowa Peace and Justice Center Thursday morning.

The team mentioned one of the main reasons the women's population is higher is the criminalization of addictions. They mentioned there are "barriers to medical care in prison, no accountability for the women, and hardly any mental health services for women."

They have seen many women who were addicts try to give their unborn child a "sober" birth (no pain medication) as they feel that is one of the greatest gifts they can give their child. The project has attended over 120 prison births so far in Minnesota.

The Minnesota Prison Doula Project is funded by research partners who collect experiences of the women prisoners, writing and publishing their stories, and from private foundations, individual donors, and from income the team receives from private speaking engagements.

Harman is currently trying to work with Iowa City to offer a prison-based doula project housed under the University of Iowa.

For more information, visit: http://www.mnprisondoulaproject.org/