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20 questions to ask before hiring a Black doula

What to ask in the first call: training, scope, billing, Medicaid acceptance, hospital partnerships, and the specific Black-maternal-mortality-aware skills that distinguish strong doula support from generic doula support.

What's in the toolkit

What this guide covers

Training and certification. DONA, CAPPA, ICTC, ProDoula, community-based: what each means, what to ask about training, and why community-based certifications carry equal or greater weight in Black-maternal advocacy.

Billing and Medicaid. Direct-pay rates, sliding scale, Medicaid managed-care enrollment status, how to find a Medicaid-billing doula in your state via the Medicaid doula coverage tracker.

Hospital relationships. Whether the doula has worked with your delivering hospital, what to expect from labor-and-delivery staff, and how to handle a doula being asked to leave.

The Black-maternal-mortality competency questions. Five questions that surface whether a doula has trained on Black-specific maternal-mortality risks (preeclampsia, hemorrhage advocacy, postpartum monitoring).

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