Who we are
Doulas best support families if we, too, are in a community of support.
People are healthier before and after childbirth when they're wholly supported and empowered to make informed decisions. That's why our collaborative goal is to ensure clients have a cooperative network of support.
Birmingham Born is a collective of birth and postpartum doulas, childbirth educators, and lactation specialists. Each of our members is dedicated to ensuring families have positive birth experiences. By supporting one another, we better support you.
OUR TEAM
Allison Miller
Allison Miller is a birth and postpartum doula, a childbirth educator, a midwife’s assistant, and a student midwife in Birmingham, Alabama. After completing her Master’s in Public Health with a focus in Maternal and Child Health and International Health, she saw a disconnect between policy and the ability to actually help individual families. Allison, fueled by a passion for empowering people with information and choice, began her path as a doula after realizing that universally there was a lack of dignity and respect for birthing individuals in the labor room. She trained through DONA in 2009 and certified through Doula Trainings International (DTI) as a birth and postpartum doula in 2016. In 2017, she certified as a Childbirth Educator through DTI. In 2019 she became a birth assistant for local midwife and in January 2021 began her career as a student midwife at Midwifery College of Utah.
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I believe that to the overlooked, a doula is a witness. To the powerless, a doula is strength. To the voiceless, a doula is a shout. To the disenfranchised, a doula is hope. I am a shoulder, a hand, a cool glass of water, a warm rag, a sounding board in a quiet place. A keeper of time and space. Someone that helps navigate systems, processes and emotions. Someone that translates and educates. At some births I am all of these things. And at some births I am simply there to observe.
Allison is a birth and postpartum doula and a childbirth educator.
Email: Allison@bhmborn.com
Instagram: @bhmborn
Emily Thayer
Emily is a birth doula, photographer, and midwife’s assistant in Birmingham. Her interest in birth began in middle school, but during college she began exploring other options and found herself torn between pursuing a career in either midwifery or counseling. To see if birth was still a passion of hers, she attended a doula training and began working with a local nonprofit. While witnessing the impact that empowered births can have and the lack of true patient centered care that her clients were receiving, she realized the importance of doula work and felt a sense of true belonging and peace in this role. In addition to her certification as a birth doula in 2021 (DONA), she completed a postpartum doula training in 2023 (CBI) and began her work as a birth photographer and birth assistant shortly after. Emily is also still working with the local nonprofit as contract doula and community outreach coordinator.
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In our world we have often deduced birth to being something you must get through. But when given space, compassion, and support, I believe the birth experience can transform the way a woman views herself and the strength that she carries into motherhood. Birth carries different fears, excitements, doubts, and emotions for each person and can’t be met with a one size fits all approach. My role is to merely walk with mothers as they process their desires, find their voice, and help support and encourage that voice.
Instagram: @honeybirthbham
Website: www.honeybirthbham.com
Email: honeybirthbham@gmail.com
Mookie Sayaiphone
Mookie Sayaiphone is a Birth Doula certified through Doula Training International. She has had a passion for parents and babies ever since she saw her first birth in rural Laos and the birth of her sons. She learned a lot from her years living in Laos and walking with mothers there. She cares deeply about nutrition, exercise, baby wearing and keeping a calm mentality and focus through labor. She also feels strongly about empowering fathers in birth. She often references Spinning Babies and is always researching position techniques to help labor. Mookie is passionate about fear being taken out of birth, and replacing fear with the feelings of safety, confidence and peace. Mookie loves seeing the birth of a family, and desires to see a shift in medical care and societal views of pregnancy and birth. She longs to always advocate for women and be a pillar of strength that can help mothers (and father’s) realize the strength and peace in themself. She is always learning more so she can be an ever growing resource to people getting ready for a child. When she isn’t being a doula she is a mother to two boys, a wife, a friend, and works in coffee.
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Every woman and family is different, I love to witness and be whatever that moment, that need, that unique person calls for. I have great joy in serving women going through the sweaty hard work that is birth. I want to listen and observe each woman as an individual with different needs, and let each birth story be that woman’s own story. Birth is a really special thing, it’s rawness brings vulnerability and beauty. I long to help women find peace and sanctity in the birth of their child. Parenthood is a huge change full of challenges. Society and the medical world in many ways have disempowered families at the very start. My hope is to be a tool, resource and voice in giving that power back. That you can rise to meet this new challenge of bringing life into the world. I see being a doula as a complete honor, and it gives me great joy to witness and to serve families in the birth of their new child.
Mookie is a birth doula.
Email: yourstorydoula@gmail.com
Instagram:
Tricia Phillips
Tricia Phillips is a birth doula trained through DONA International. She has had a heart for moms and babies for as long as she can remember. Tricia is a nurturer and cares deeply for others, and is health-minded. Becoming a doula was the perfect blend of her passions and skills. She believes it is important for women to have access to reliable information in order to make informed choices for their births and feel empowered, as well as to be supported and cared for with all of the vulnerabilities and unknowns that pregnancy and birth can bring. She is wholeheartedly invested in meeting the individual needs of each woman she has the honor to walk alongside on their birth journey, knowing that no two experiences are the same. Tricia is also a mathematics professor at Birmingham-Southern College, investing in students' lives each day and making strides in public health research. She loves to play ultimate frisbee, spend time with friends, and try new restaurants in her free time.
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The sacredness, beauty, and transformative nature of birth leaves me in awe each time. It is an honor to share in the time and space of a new life coming into this world, with so much vulnerability and strength exhibited by the woman giving birth.
I envision a world where the one giving birth is fully seen, listened to, and honored by all those bearing witness to the hard work she does in growing and delivering her baby. One where this witnessing of the most incredible process a woman's body is capable of is used as a reminder to women of the depths of their strength. A world where women feel empowered in their journey and families walk confidently in the direction of caring for new life with the support they desire. I want to be a part of making that world a reality.
I will inform when you desire choice. I will listen without judgement when the words need to flow out. I will comfort when the pain is too much to bear. You and your baby are worth a safe, loving environment. And I will be with you every step of the way to ensure that.
Tricia serves women and families as a birth doula, as well as a sibling doula.
Email: triciaphillipsthedoula@gmail.com
Website: triciaphillipsthedoula.weebly.com
Catherine Cashio
Catherine loves mothering her three delightful children. From epidural to homebirth, her beautiful, diverse pregnancies led her to birth work. She attended her first birth in 2014 and later completed birth and postpartum doula training through DONA International. When not mothering and doula-ing, Catherine teaches math at Birmingham-Southern College, inundating future parents with birth statistics.
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Supporting mothers and families at their most sacred moments brings me great joy. It is an honor to create space for mothers and fathers to experience labors of love and confident, informed births of their choice. Throughout human civilization women have relied upon and supported one another through birth. I aim to bring a peaceful, knowledgeable presence; to provide physical comfort and emotional support where needed; and to connect you to the history and legacy of women and families through this work. In my children’s births I learned so much about my own limitations and capabilities, the graceful and powerful truth of my body. It would be privileged to partner with you through the joy and power of your own birth journey.
Catherine is a birth doula.
Email: Catherine.dooley@gmail.com
Hannah Haas Burkhalter
Hannah Haas is a mother, dietitian, and lactation consultant. She completed her undergrad and Masters in Human Nutrition at Alabama in 2016 and began a job as a nutritionist at the health department for the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). She quickly realized the gap in women’s healthcare in terms of nutrition and breastfeeding education. Societal expectations for infant feeding and the actual experience of mothers did not add up. This started her on the path to become a lactation consultant and she obtained her lactation credential (IBCLC) in 2020. In addition to offering in-home lactation support, Hannah Haas has served breastfeeding parents by working as a lactation consultant in a pediatric hospital setting since 2019.
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Women (and their babies!) deserve routine nutrition and breastfeeding support. How can one pour from an empty cup? There is nothing more humbling, joyful, and sometimes unpredictable than those early moments of motherhood. I feel privileged to work with mothers during such a transformative time and aim to avoid an all-or-nothing approach to infant feeding.
It is my goal to provide gentle, evidenced-based lactation support that empowers mothers to care for themselves and meet their breastfeeding goals.
Email: hannahburkhalterrdn@gmail.com
Emily Gray
Emily Gray has been providing postpartum support to the Birmingham area for three years. After training through DONA International in 2016 she has assisted many families as they welcome new member(s) to their family. Providing vital support whether it be after pregnancy to childbirth or after the adoption process. Emily has a career in medical transcription but is called to postpartum doula work and understands the vital importance of support in this sacred time for everyone involved. In addition, she has two children of her own, son Kal and daughter Lilliana.
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Often times the amount of support available following childbirth can be lacking. New parents can feel isolated, left at home, overwhelmed. I aim to provide companionship, non-judgmental support, and education. I provide a variety of services based on each families unique needs. As the entire family experiences this new season, I aim to support mom through her physical recovery while also emotionally supporting the entire family. I would be honored to assist you with your 4th trimester.
Emily is a postpartum doula and placenta encapsulator.
Email: Emilycgray3@gmail.com
Ashley Vogt
Ashley Vogt is a Certified Birth Doula (Childbirth International), Placenta Specialist (International Placenta & Postpartum Association) and Newborn and Toddler Sleep Consultant. After giving birth to her first child in 2013, Ashley realized how important support is during pregnancy, birth and beyond and that has inspired her study of all things birth related. She is currently providing virtual sleep consults for any and all sleep related issues families may face as they travel through their parenthood journey.
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I believe we go through many stages as parents and deserve the help and resources to be supported throughout those ever-shifting stages- sometimes we are well rested, other times, not at all; our children only sleep in our bed or on our chest, sometimes they rest in their own space. We ebb and flow with their needs and often push their comfort above our own. Newborn and toddler sleep is always changing, evolving, steps backward, steps forward- it's hard to navigate! I work alongside each family to meet you where you are in the sleep journey, to join you in determining your ideal sleep goals for your child, and to formulate a plan that accomplishes those goals in a methodology that you feel comfortable with. I long for you to know that while parenting is full of sacrifices, months and months of endless sleepless nights does not have to be the norm. It's never too late to start. Let's work together to create an environment where you are confident your child is loved, fed, safe and well rested- and you are too.
Ashley is a birth and postpartum doula that is currently specializing in Newborn and Toddler Sleep Consulting.
Email: ashleynicolevogt@gmail.com
Emily Peterson
Emily loves helping people transition into parenthood — both as a birth and postpartum doula. She has been serving families in the Birmingham area for almost 10 years. Her journey into birth work began after her experience becoming a new mother. She also loves spending time with her two sons, leading Tinkergarten classes, fostering animals, and teaching yoga.
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I believe parents deserve to be empowered with evidence-based information and the ability to confidently make decisions about the birth experience and care of their child. As a doula, I am there to support parents physically and emotionally as they begin a new journey together. It is an honor to be present at a time they will remember for the rest of their lives.
Emily is a birth and postpartum doula.
Email: emilygardnerpeterson@gmail.com
Abbi Hernandez, PhD
Abbi Hernandez is a mother of 2 and an ICEA certified Childbirth Educator. Abbi has a PhD in Biomedical Science and currently works as a neuroscientist at UAB, specializing in the role of peripheral health in age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease. She also received a graduate certificate in Biomedical Education and has taught science courses at the college and graduate levels since 2016. After the birth of her first child in 2020, Abbi strongly felt there was a disconnect between the information most new parents receive and the information most new parents need in order to thrive. With her experience in education, interest in birth work, and diverse experiences in childbirth herself, Abbi was driven to become a Childbirth Educator to help families successfully navigate the transition into parenthood and all of the decisions surrounding pregnancy and birth.
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I believe that knowledge is a fundamental right, especially for those making a transition as fundamentally life-altering as birth and parenthood. Knowledge truly is power, and there cannot be informed consent in the absence of genuine understanding. A guiding hand can make a world of difference in this process, and I am so excited to go on this journey with parents to be.
Abbi is a childbirth educator.
Email: abbihernandez324@gmail.com
Hannah Rigg
Hannah is a birth doula (trained by Natural Resources 2021 and seeking doula certification through Natural Resources), Licensed Masters Social Worker, and baby carrying instructor. Hannah found the work of a doula to be the most natural embodiment of her social work training. After years of working at the community level supporting pregnant parents and new parents, Hannah is grateful for the opportunity to experience this transformational time individually with each client. Her knowledge of development and attachment fuels her passion for a truly easeful and compassionate birth that informs the delicate dance between caregiver(s) and baby as they navigate their new lives together.
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I'm continuously intrigued and amazed by the ways in which birth unfolds and parents intuitively care for their babies. I believe every parent is the right parent for their baby and that we often just need a bit of encouragement to confidently trust what innately feels best to us as parents. This begins with your journey to conception, throughout pregnancy, and our years parenting our children. The invitation into your family's journey to parenting is a gift.
Hannah is a birth doula.
Email: hzrigg@gmail.com
