Being a doula means offering emotional, physical, and informational support to individuals and families during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. In a recent interview, actress Yaya DaCosta opens up about her work as a doula, with a desire to help bring change to the prenatal space for Black Women.

“I’ve been a birth worker since 2010,” DaCosta told People Magazine. Then, she continued discussing an online festival that she was a part of during Black Maternal Health Week 2025, that exposed attendees to in depth discussions surrounding the Black Maternal Health Crisis, “from a place of solution finding, from a place of celebration.”

The Lincoln Lawyer actress continued, “The most recent study has shown that since legislation and policy changes have been in the works, since doulas have been included in healthcare for people to be able to use their insurance, since all these changes have been made, the numbers of maternal mortality have decreased for white women, for Asian women, for Hispanic women, indigenous women, basically every demographic in this country — except Black women. Our numbers have worsened.”

Per the February 2025 Health E-Stats from the CDC, in 2023, maternal mortality rates decreased significantly for White non-Hispanic and Hispanic women. The observed decrease for Asian non-Hispanic and increase for Black non-Hispanic women was not statistically significant. In 2023, the maternal mortality rate for Black women was 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births and was significantly higher than rates for White (14.5), Hispanic (12.4), and Asian (10.7) women.

DaCosta said that one of the “solutions” for Black mothers to consider having an “ecstatic home birth,” which the actress herself had with her son in 2013. 

“My favorite thing is home birth because it’s just like, you can do what you want. You can play your music, you can dance, you can dim the lights, you can use all of the tools available to us, including pleasure, including your partner if they’re present in the process, understanding that there’s a correlation between the way that we get pregnant and the way that we get unpregnant.”

The former America’s Next Top Model contestant admits that “home births” are not necessarily always for everyone. “Obviously, it’s not always possible, but I think it’s possible more often than we think because of what we’ve been told,” she said.

By sharing her personal experience of an “ecstatic home birth” and advocating for informed, fear-free birthing choices, this tremendous advocate for Black maternal health aims to transform the narrative around childbirth,  within the  community.

Photo: Yaya DaCosta Instagram/Tamron Hall Show