Latgham Thomas, founder of Mama Glow, a maternal health and education company that specializes in training doulas, joined Sonia Isabelle to discuss birthwork, womanhood, and more.
Thomas describes her organization as "a space for folks to reclaim birth as a sacred rite of passage and as a moment of joy."
Latham Thomas | Advocate Now
"Birth is a metaphor for everything in life," Thomas says of the significance. "We go through a process of shedding, reclamation, death and rebirth... We're in constant conversation and in dialogue with birth and death all of the time."
Emotional solace is a key aspect of Thomas' mission to support people through major life transitions. She says doulas do not just assist with birth — they can also help families through death and loss.
"I'm always sitting at that threshold of supporting people through major change," Thomas says, adding. "The United States [does] a horrible job of ensuring that people have adequate support during difficulty. If you think about fertility period, it's fraught with anxiety, nobody's there. You think about abortion and loss, nobody's there. You think about when you have a baby, nobody's there."
The field is deeply important, as it can provide patients with alternative systems of support, while also giving them the knowledge to advocate for the care they need.
"It's important to have body literacy at the foundation of movement building," she explains. "We have to understand our bodies. ... Because once we can reclaim our bodies as sacred, and we can come home to ourselves, really return home to our bodies, then we also gain a sense of empowerment that is really hard for somebody to take away from you."
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