COURAGE IN CARE: COMMUNITY DOULAS AND THE JOYFUL REVOLUTION OF BIRTH On Display At Newark ArtSpace

A statewide coalition of doulas, community leaders, healthcare providers, artists, and advocates has created The Courage in Care: Community Doulas and the Joyful Revolution of Birth, a first-of-its-kind immersive exhibit that uses photojournalism, audio storytelling, and multisensory environments to celebrate the work of New Jersey's community doulas.

While New Jersey has made progress toward becoming the safest and most equitable state in which to have and raise a baby, not all communities have benefited equally. Black women are nearly seven times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women, and Black infants are more than three times as likely to die before their first birthday.

Community doulas—trusted, culturally rooted birth workers—help reduce these inequities in health outcomes for babies and their families by providing essential physical, emotional, and informational support during pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum months. Their presence leads to healthier parents and babies, especially in communities historically impacted by systemic inequities.

The exhibit will be on display through July 15 at Newark ArtSpace at Vermella Broad Street, 355 Broad Street, Newark. The exhibit formally opened on April 29 with a reception, poetry reading, and panel discussion.

The Courage in Care is more than an exhibit—it's a love letter to the doulas, birthing parents, and communities reshaping what it means to give and receive dignified, culturally grounded care.

The exhibit was developed under the guidance and leadership of an advisory council of community doulas and maternal health advocates from across New Jersey. With support from social justice strategy consultants Narrative Initiative and In Good Company, a community design workshop, these birth workers shaped the stories, themes, and vision that bring The Courage in Care to life.

NJPAC's Arts & Well-Being Department, which harnesses the power of the arts to advance positive health outcomes, is producing events associated with the exhibit.

“Community doulas show up with presence, trust, and compassion—often when the system does not. The Courage in Care uplifts their voices and calls on all of us to build a maternal health system rooted in dignity, respect, and high-quality care,” says Atiya Weiss, Executive Director of the Burke Foundation.

“Raising awareness of a doula's invaluable impact on maternal health outcomes is a critically important aspect of pushing birth justice forward,” says Dr. Sherri-Ann Butterfield, Senior Vice President of Social Impact at NJPAC.

Supported by the Burke Foundation, Ascend at the Aspen Institute, MERCK for Mothers, Community Health Acceleration Partnership, Turrell Fund, The MCJ Amelior Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Bristol Myers Squibb, The Courage in Care reflects a larger, nationwide trend toward reimagining maternal health.

The exhibit illustrates the ways doulas can help reduce maternal and infant health disparities in communities of color. Doulas provide essential support to birthing families throughout pregnancy, during childbirth in both healthcare settings and homes, and throughout the postpartum period. Their services also reduce healthcare costs by minimizing the need for medical interventions in deliveries.

This exhibit—which includes photos of New Jersey families with their community doulas as well as displays that mirror real-life settings such as a family's living room and a doula's working desk—aims to raise awareness of the assistance doulas can offer birthing families, to promote policy reforms that increase doula compensation and make their work more sustainable, and to make doula care more widely available. The installation includes imagery of doula support for birthing families and an area for processing grief and loss. The Courage in Care exhibit also offers practical information for families on such topics as how to have doula support covered by health insurers.

In New Jersey and nationally, Black and Brown families suffer much higher rates of maternal and infant mortality and preventable birth complications than their white counterparts, and doulas play an important role in reversing those trends. Parents who experience doula-assisted births are two times less likely to experience a birth complication and four times less likely to have low-birth-weight babies. Those assisted by doulas are more likely to initiate breastfeeding and are more likely to be satisfied with the care they receive, according to research done by the Commonwealth Fund, a health equity research organization.

“I'm still hearing: ‘I need you to be there because I don't want to die.' That level of anxiety, despair, and fear when it comes to birthing in New Jersey still exists,” says Dr. Michelle Gabriel-Caldwell of Baby, Please! Birth Services, a veteran West Orange doula and birth educator, who participated in a panel discussion marking the exhibit's opening celebration. 

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