Khadija Sanyang initially came to the United States from her home country, The Gambia, as an accounting student but had a stark change of heart in her career path after witnessing the tumultuous birthing journey of her elder sister.
In 2006, before settling in Minnesota, Sanyang lived with her elder sister in Florida as her sister prepared to give birth to her first child. “The hospital didn’t accept her at that time for prenatal visits because she didn’t have insurance. After seven months into her pregnancy, she had preeclampsia. Due to that preeclampsia, she had an emergency c-section. The baby was two pounds,” Sanyang says.
Immediately following the birth of her niece, Sanyang’s sister complained of shortness of breath. Trouble breathing was dismissed as asthma and Sanyang’s sister was discharged.
After pleading with her sister to return to the hospital out of concern, an excess of fluid was found in the lungs of Sanyang’s sister.
Black Maternal Health Week begins on April 11, and its theme this year is Healing Legacies: Strengthening Black Maternal Health Through Collective Action and Advocacy. The week-long celebration comes at the heels of a 2025 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing an increase in the rate of pregnancy-related deaths between 2022-2023 for Black women.
Though her sister survived a challenging pregnancy, birth, and postpartum experience, Sanyang couldn’t help but notice that what was missing for her sister was advocacy within the hospital — hospital staff that believed her concerns.
Three years later, Sanyang was newly married and moved to Minnesota. “When I was pregnant [in Minnesota], my pregnancy was completely different from my sister’s. I had a midwife, and that midwife provided me [with] a doula,” Sanyang said.
Sanyang was surprised and in awe of the doula’s compassionate service and reminders that she had agency over her birthing and postpartum plans. “She [the doula] would tell me what to do, what to eat. My sister couldn’t get that. She [the doula] told me if I don’t want pain medication, no one should force me. And if I want to breastfeed, no one should force me to use a bottle on my baby. I’m like, wow,” Sanyang shared.
“When I was having my baby, she [the doula] went with me to the hospital, and she was massaging me, giving me water, reminding me to use the toilet. The nurses would just come and monitor the baby and see how I am doing, that’s it. But she [the doula] was doing everything for me. She would ask me if I want to eat, [if] I want water, what does my husband need. She [would] show my husband the things he could do to help me with pain and contractions,” Sanyang said.
When Sanyang was with her sister during childbirth, both sisters felt alone and helpless. But Sanyang’s own birthing experience was different in nearly every way. “During my sister’s time, we cried out loud for my mom. We wished my mom was there. But for this one [Sanyang’s birth], everything was so different.
“When I came back for my prenatal visit, I talked to my doctor and my midwife and asked, ‘How can I become a doula?’ Because I want to advocate for women. My sister was missing something that I had during my pregnancy and I don’t want women to go through what my sister went through,” Sanyang said
In 2018, Sanyang attained her doula certification. In 2020, Sanyang joined the Everyday Miracles team, dedicated to reducing maternal health disparities, as an on-call doula assigned to Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC).
Sanyang’s doula services mirror what was offered to her during her first pregnancy: “attending their birth or even educating them on what to do, and I will visit them postpartum to help them with their babies, like massaging the mother and baby, and help them with coping with postpartum depression,” Sanyang said.
“A majority of my clients are African, African American and Native American,” Sanayng continued. Her doula experience has shown her barriers that are disruptive to the birthing experiences of women of color.
“Some of the nurses do stand up and advocate for them [those in labor] during that difficult moment. But some nurses are so frustrated with them, they don’t even want to be with them. So those kinds of things are barriers, because you see them as different but you are a health care worker. Instead of being patient and incorporating their culture, which they teach you, you have to know your cultural bias as a nurse in order to be able to work with other people.
“Some women feel like they [health care workers] are discriminating against them because of the way they talk to them, the way they answer their questions, the way they ignore some of their concerns. These are the barriers we are facing right now,” Sanyang said.
Sanyang’s driving force in infusing compassion, advocacy and gentleness in her practice as a doula remains the adverse birthing experience she witnessed her elder sister go through.
“[Being a doula] is very important to me, because I could have lost my sister. If I knew better what I know today, my sister wouldn’t [have] gone through what she went through in the first place. It means a lot to me because I’m making changes in a lot of women’s lives, the way they see labor and delivery, being a mom for the first time, and how they can enjoy their own journey,” Sanyang said.
For doula services or more information, visit everyday-miracles.org.
Bintah Kanteh is a contributor writer for MSR with interest in public policy and local immigrant communities