Episode 59
Doulas Improving Birth Work Through Ancestral Practices with Ashe Birthing Services & The Bridge Directory
June 7, 2024
Founder, Ashe Birthing Services
Co-Founder, The Bridge Directory
Emilie Rodriguez
Emilie Rodriguez is a Black traditional birth and postpartum doula and medical anthropologist. She founded Ashe Birthing Services - a team of BIPOC doulas that serve over 400 families a year in NYC, and co-founded The Bridge Directory - a platform of perinatal providers and professionals of color who are creating a new standard of maternal health.
As an active Bronxite and reproductive justice advocate, Emilie is passionate about her community and Black maternal health. The Bridge has recently partnered with Columbia University to create a Maternal Health Research Center of Excellence as part of a seven year grant with the National Institute of Health (NIH), creating scalable multi-level strategies grounded in anti-racism and empowerment. As a principal investigator, Emilie oversees all projects and components of the grant. She is also on the Community Organization Leadership Advisory Board at Columbia on a separate NIH grant working to address maternal sepsis via patient education materials and sepsis protocol/ guidelines on labor floors.
Guramrit LeBron
Co-Founder, The Bridge Directory &
The Bridge Community Foundation
Guramrit LeBron is a birth and postpartum doula, certified lactation counselor (IBCLC candidate, set to take the exam in the Fall) and co-founder of the Bridge Directory and The Bridge Community Foundation. After studying Magazine Journalism at Syracuse University, she completed training as a holistic health counselor. It was through interactions with her clients, many of whom were pregnant or new parents, that she became involved in birth work. Guramrit is currently pursuing a masters in Infant and Maternal Nutrition with a focus on a holistic approach to pregnancy, postpartum and infant/toddler feeding.
In partnership with Columbia University, Guramrit is Program Director of two of the four components of the NY-CHAMP grant (Community-Hospital-Academic Maternal Health Equity Partnerships) funded by the NIH. Her work focuses on launching a novel community-centered research, training, and engagement program that will identify and address the comorbid biologic and psychologic pathways linking adverse social determinants of health to disparities in severe maternal morbidity and mortality, while affecting systems and policy change for maternal health equity in NYC and State.
Guramrit was born and raised in the Bronx and currently lives there with her husband and two children.