PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Shane Darby wears a lot of hats. She’s a mother of three, a council member in Wilmington, Delaware, and a mental health therapist.
“I run a for-profit community program called My Art Community Spaces where I have a garden and a small community center in my neighborhood,” she said.
Through it all, she still finds time to bridge the racial gaps in maternity care, not just during Black Maternal Health Week but year-round. In 2019, she founded Black Mothers in Power, one of the few organizations addressing the Black maternal mortality crisis in the state of Delaware through education, awareness and policy.
“One of the things that popped up around 2016 were Facebook groups,” Darby recalled. “I remember being in these groups — it was like, ‘Black women who breastfeed,’ ‘Black women who use cloth diapers.’ I was learning this information from these amazing Black women from across the country about Black maternal rates, statistics, disparities, and I wasn’t really hearing the conversation here in Delaware.
“I wanted to figure out, what are we doing about it? And how can I contribute to that conversation and push the needle forward with trying to decrease the disparities that exist in black maternal health care?”
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As part of its mission, the nonprofit offers a doula training program. It just graduated nearly a dozen doulas to help women have better birth outcomes in the state.
“One of the key things we want to do is increase the number of doulas in the state of Delaware,” she said. “Doulas are non-medical professionals who provide support to birthing people before, during and after pregnancy. The research has shown that it has helped to decrease some of the disparities.”
Darby’s calling for caring for vulnerable mothers stems from her own journey into motherhood. She experienced homelessness during her first pregnancy and didn’t have a lot of support. Now, she’s building that support system for others.
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She finds inspiration in her three daughters, imagining a better world for them.
“Those personal experiences have shaped and put me into this position to want to be an advocate, to want to be able to organize around this issue,” she added. “I have three Black girls. Those three Black girls are one day going to be black women, and I hope and pray that they live in a better world than I live in.
“By the time they get to be adults, when my daughters decide to have children, I hope the disparity rate has decreased.”
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