Ravae S.M. Sinclair JD, CD(DONA), LCCE

Ravae is dedicated to helping families through her work as a birth doula, postpartum doula, lactation counselor and placenta encapsulator. With more than 17 years of experience as a doula and three years as a Lamaze certified childbirth educator, Ravae has supported more than 560 families as they birth and nurture their babies. She currently sits as President on the board of DONA International which is an organization that educates and certifies birth and postpartum doulas. With nearly 5,000 members, DONA International is the largest and most respected doula training organization in the U.S.

Ravae continues her advocacy and support of birthing people with a focus on Black, multi-ethnic and families most impacted by inequities in the U.S. healthcare system. That support comes in the form of childbirth education classes, doula education and doula services between the Washington D.C. area and Florida. When not traveling for doula work, Ravae lives outside of Miami, FL with her partner, Othello III.

Session

Taking a Deep Dive Into Unpacking Implicit Bias to Influence Doulas and the Birth or Postpartum Teams

You may hear the term “implicit bias”, but what does it really mean? What does implicit bias look like? How does implicit bias feel? At the end of this session, you’ll be able to answer those questions and begin to recognize implicit bias in yourself and others. We know that implicit bias (and explicit bias) places families of color and marginalized communities on track for risk of pre-term birth, morbidity and death. We will dive deeper to identify individual and group bias to learn how to dismantle implicit bias, calling it out in the moment, for the benefit of birthing and postpartum families. Doing this work will be your direct contribution towards combatting the inequities and disparities in the broken birthing U.S. health care system that lead to higher maternal morbidity and mortality rates and infant mortality rates.