Birth for Humankind is a registered charity with a dedicated core team of eight part-time employees, 40 volunteer doulas, a committed and ‘hands-on’ board, as well as a growing community of people passionate about promoting better birth outcomes and supporting women in need.

The orgnisation exists to ensure all women, regardless of their socio-economic circumstances, have access to support, education and care during their pregnancy, birth and early parenting journey. Their aim is to realise the vision where:

Every mother has the care and support she needs to make empowered choices and have the best birth and early parenting experience possible for herself, her baby and growing family.

Birth for Humankind was founded in 2014 by two doulas who saw a gap in the maternal health system: women experiencing socio-economic disadvantage were often journeying through pregnancy and labour alone, underprepared and confused about their choices, leading to poorer birth experiences and outcomes. Birth for Humankind exists to help close this gap. They do this by mobilising and supervising a team of volunteer doulas who give of their time to provide free one-to-one continuous care through the perinatal period for women facing socio-economic disadvantage; and by running education programs that are relevant and accessible for women in need. By ‘mothering the mother’, they play an important role in supporting women, their children and their families at this important time.

The majority of their clients are women from refugee or asylum seeker backgrounds who have recently arrived in Australia, don’t speak English fluently and don’t have a network of family and friends to support them. They also work with many young mums under the age of 25, women experiencing domestic violence or homelessness and women experiencing other forms of socio-economic disadvantage.

Informed decisions, loving care and continuous support can help to reduce birth complications and support more positive birth outcomes for mothers and babies. They are here to provide non-judgmental support for the individual needs and choices of our clients, whatever they may be. They warmly welcome all the women and families who come to them.