From Legislation to Liberation: Building Doula Justice

Campaign Overview:

We did it—together. New Mexico has officially recognized doula care as essential through the passage of legislation establishing Medicaid reimbursement. This milestone was not the work of one organization alone, but the result of generations of collective organizing, storytelling, and advocacy led by birthworkers, families, and communities across the state.

Now, we enter a new phase of this movement. The New Mexico Doula Association (NMDA) is working shoulder to shoulder with community partners to ensure that this policy victory becomes real, sustainable change for doulas and families across New Mexico. Our focus is building the infrastructure and support systems needed so that community-based doulas—especially those rooted in Black Indigenous, queer, disabled, and rural communities—can not only access Medicaid reimbursement, but thrive within it, while staying true to their values and while staying true to their values and accountable to their communities.

Your Support Will Help Us:

Together with our partners, NMDA is providing direct technical assistance to doulas navigating credentialing with the New Mexico Department of Health, enrolling as Medicaid providers, understanding contracts, documenting care, and billing Medicaid. These supports are critical to ensuring doulas are equipped to access this new system without being burdened by bureaucracy or lost in translation.

We are also deeply committed to the sustainability and wellbeing of our doula workforce. Our movement includes helping doulas establish businesses, meet CPR and HIPAA requirements, access mentorship, and build professional skills that will carry their work forward with confidence.

As part of this collective movement towards accessible full spectrum doula care and relationship mending with medical professionals through collaboration, mutual respect, and community based training, NMDA seeks to facilitate team based, wrap-around care that is truly patient centered. NMDA supports community-based offerings that center healing and justice, including education and mentorship in anti-racism and decolonial frameworks, trauma-informed and healing-centered care, gender-affirming and inclusive practices, and self-care rooted in community resilience.

We uplift doulas who provide full-spectrum care—including support for abortion, miscarriage, birth, postpartum, and parenting—recognizing that every phase of reproductive life deserves dignity, agency, and culturally grounded support. Abortion doulas in particular serve a vital function in our movement toward reproductive justice, navigating complicated politics to offer nonjudgemental, compassionate, and informed care to people experiencing pregnancy loss no matter the cause.

Importantly, we are co-developing community doula best practices with partners across the state to protect and define this work from the inside out. Together, we are ensuring that doula care in New Mexico remains grounded in the lived experiences, knowledge systems, and traditions of our communities—not reshaped or diluted by systems that have historically excluded us.

Why Now?

This is a historic moment in NM policy—but policy alone does not create justice. It is what we build now, together, that will determine whether this system becomes liberatory or extractive.

Estimates are that 70% of the births in NM are covered by Medicaid and NMDA is committed to ensuring they each have access to robust support from experienced doulas in their community. Without adequate support, the very people this movement was built to uplift will be left behind.

We are committed to co-leading a movement that holds systems accountable, nurtures doulas as essential workers and culture keepers, and creates lasting pathways for community-rooted, full-spectrum care—including abortion doula support.

Invest in the Movement. Support the Vision.

When you give to NMDA, you are not just donating—you are joining a collective effort to build a just, liberated future for birthing people, families, and birth workers across New Mexico. Your support fuels access to training, mentorship, technical assistance, and the infrastructure needed to keep this work grounded in community and justice.

Help us raise $50,000 to continue co-leading this movement and powering the systems-change our communities deserve.