Full Circle Doula Services
Full Circle Doula Services was established in April 2020 as a personal call to action by owner Anesha Stanley who is currently the only certified Black doula in the East Central Michigan USDA Prosperity Region. Grounded in her passion for birthing persons, maternal wellness, and birth/maternal healthcare equity, Anesha is committed to educating, empowering, and supporting birthing persons in every stage of life.
Full Circle Doula Services provides birth, bereavement, and postpartum doula services, as well as childbirth education and placenta services, centering Black families from preconception through the postpartum period. We provide non-medical, non-judgmental informational, emotional, and physical support around each family’s labor and birth, preconception, loss and bereavement, and/or infertility journey. Full Circle Doula shares the options available to families at every stage of the process, offering support and resources along the way.
From Anesha: “Centering Black families is important because birth and breastfeeding education and village support is for us, by us, and from us. We have the answers, we just need the resources. There are Black women who desire breastfeeding support and education and I know how to connect with them and where to find them!”
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Mission: To serve and center the community of BIPOC birthing/breastfeeding families seeking to take their pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and breastfeeding possibilities into their own hands through the support and resources from a doula who looks like them.
Vision for the Future: To support and guide each family to a safe, self-determining, memorable, and empowering birthing experience without fear.
Leadership: Anesha Stanley, CD, PCD, BD is founder of Full Circle Doula Services and Keys of Hope Foundation, serving the community of birthing people and families who are searching to take their pregnancy, birth, and postpartum options into their own hands through the support and resources of a doula specific to their birth experience wishes. Anesha serves as a continual, compassionate, and willing servant as a birthing, postpartum, lactation, and bereavement supporter for numerous women dating back to 2014. She believes in the power of birth to heal generations and communities based on ancestral knowledge and experience.
Partners:
- Ronald Stanley, M. Ed -Co-founder and Vice President
- Dr. Duane Heilbronn, Jr, MD
- Mitzi Heineman, LMSW BCD
- Omar Jones
- Andrea Labean, Esq
- Asia Elliott, MSNHP
- Erica Williams, M. Div
- Vivian Rankins, BSN, RN, BS
- Joseph Berkobien
- Michigan Breastfeeding Network
- Keys of Hope Foundation
- Black and Indigenous leaders of the CORE Cohort
History of our partnership with MIBFN: Our partnership began in 2021 as an awardee of the Young Parents Fund Mini Grants. We are founding participants in the CORE cohort.
Service model: Our support services center families by providing face-to-face and virtual support, tailored education, and information throughout pre- and post-natal care. Services currently offered include:
- Preconception support and infertility counseling
- Prenatal visits
- Pregnancy support
- Birth doula support
- Placenta encapsulation
- Postpartum doula care
- Lactation support
- Bereavement support
- Birth after loss
- Virtual birth services
- Virtual postpartum support
Successes to date:
- Established phone, website, email, and social media (Facebook and instagram)
- Established Keys of Hope Foundation for families grieving pregnancy loss and infertility
- Founding member of the 2021 MIBFN CORE Cohort
- Racial Equity Young Parents Fund Awardee
- Parent and Family Advisory Council committee member
- Saginaw Leadership Cares Awardee
- Milk Magic BIPOC Breastfeeding Panel during Black Breastfeeding Week 2021
- Established a 12-person board of directors for Keys of Hope – including broad representation in the spiritual, law, medical, and finance sectors throughout the Saginaw community
- Established Keys of Hope curriculum, a 6-part program
- Served families through birth, postpartum & bereavement
- Began providing placenta encapsulation services
- Breastfeeding support group with 5 new moms under 21
- Breastfeeding support group started in 2014
- 11 rainbow babies born
- Moved over 50 couples through the cohort
- Five 12-week programs completed so far
- Benefit concert raised over $7000 to fund Keys of Hope
