About Us
Welcome and congratulations on your growing family! We are Ginger Hollemans, LMSW, CD/PCD(DONA) and Brenda Baar, CD(DONA), GBCE, West Michigan’s most experienced doula team and the founders of Eastown Birth Partners. Our work is motivated by our belief that birth does not have to be a terrifying and traumatizing experience. Having the right birth team is an essential ingredient to a positive and empowering birth! We bring our previous experience in education and social work to our doula work and are proud to offer services and support from pregnancy through the postpartum period.
Our work is shaped by several foundational beliefs. We believe that:
a birth experience has a profound impact on the whole family.
there is no place for judgment and shame in birth choices and circumstances.
positive collaboration within the birth team is best for families.
bodily and decision-making autonomy should be honored without exception.
A positive birth is not contingent on mode of delivery or medications used/not used.
If desired, individuals are capable of natural (unmedicated) birth.
Birth is a normal physiological process that more often than not requires no medical interventions.
In a career field with a high rate of burnout and limited options for training and education, we are also passionate about creating a sustainable business model and investing in a new generation of doulas. We do this through working in a partnership model, sharing our hands-on skills through apprenticeship, and coaching new doulas on how to implement principles of sustainability in their work.
