Meet Toshira Maldonado | Black Maternal Health Advocate & Full Spectrum Doula

We had the good fortune of connecting with Toshira Maldonado and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Toshira, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
The thought process behind starting my own business was to serve the community. I am no stranger to caring for others, supporting, and advocating for those who are unable to effectively stand up for their rights so it was my thought that I can make a profession out of doing what comes both easy and natural. I also felt that in light of the Black Maternal Health Crisis, advocates and community birthworkers are a resource. I chose to be the resource.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My work is centered around uplifting Black Motherhood and the joy of Black Birth. I lean into my own experience as a teenage mother with limited resources. I often think about what I needed and what could’ve made things so much easier. I tried to show up being everything that I needed. Long before being a Black Community Doula was popular, I was doing the work with Sister Faulknor which included giving mothers rides home from the hospital after birth, preparing meals, chores, and offering prayer and emotional support when there was a mother suffering emotionally following the birth. I served women with Substance Use Disorders who were often separated from their children. Somehow I could identify with that emotionally frail mother, and also with that child that was separated because I was both at one time. I built my brand on service, humility, and love.
As a Black Maternal Health advocate, Certified Perinatal Educator, and Full Spectrum Doula, my heart goes into amplifying the message that Joyful Black Birth Matters. Black Women are 3-4 times more likely to die of a childbirth related complication due to institutional racism in the healthcare system and health inequities. I shaped my services around educating mothers and families on self advocacy and what that meant for them. Following a seven year career in the Family Regulation System it was there I learned first hand the extreme poverty, prejudice, and Social Injustices that Black and Brown mothers and birthing people faced. I hated being a part of a system I could not change, but it is where I learned family regulation policy and taught families how to navigate the system and take their lives back. I worked especially well with pregnant women and mothers with young children. After witnessing first hand a legalized state funded child trafficking ring involving a White Woman caring for several Black and the way the system was moving to terminate the biological mother’s rights without her knowledge of what was about to happen, I knew I could not remain in that career path once I spoke up and fought for the medically fragile child to be placed in kinship with her family member.
I realized I was on the wrong side of the system. I decided to pursue a masters degree and turn my professional and lived experiences into a platform to help mothers and families heal and give back to my community.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If my best friend came to visit
I’d take her to the beach to enjoy nature. We would breathe, stretch, talk about the days of being young wives and mothers and spending nearly every Friday night and all day Saturday in church as if there was nothing else to do. Of course we’d talk about our most powerful ancestors, our grandmothers who helped to shape us into who we are today and go down memory lane of surviving the stress of young marriages and motherhood. I would find some of the hottest Bomba drummers and Soulful House artists and we would dance! Every day of the week would be filled with rhythm, laughter, and good food.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are three people responsible for where I am today and the positive experiences along my life journey. My paternal grandmother instilled in me that getting an education and success was not optional for me. We lived in public housing with economic limitations and each day she reminded me “This is not your end, not even your beginning!” She pushed me to finish high school, get married, finish college, and pursue a good life. She passed away in 2010 before I got my Bachelors Degree, but I owe so much of my success to her. I’ll never forget her for preparing me for the world. She taught me spirituality and resilience.
The demise of my mother, who was Justice Impacted just months after I became a mother in 1997 left a void in my life.There was always someone positioned in my life to keep me centered. In the absence of my mother I had so many mothers. Mrs. Carolyn Hill, my pastor’s wife at the time gave me counseling as a young mother. She shared words of hope to inspire me to not let being a teenage mother stop me from achieving anything meaningful.
She encouraged and inspired me at a very young age. She always told me that I had a “gift of helps”. She said my purpose in earth was to help others. My late cousin Suzanne Faulknor who was the cofounder of Sisters of the Covenant, now Most Beautiful W.O.M.B. Inc, was an incredible inspiration. She understood the challenges of being a young wife and mother and she was supportive to me. It was because of her I launched into community care for postpartum mothers along side of her in the community. She helped me so much on my early motherhood journey and pushed me to finish college. Without her guidance and support I would not have been able to simultaneously raise 5 children and later earn a Masters Degree. Of course my husband of 25 years helped make the journey easy for me. He supported and financed my education while encouraging me and being a great father to our children. I owe so much to these people.

Instagram: @beautiful_womb

Linkedin: Toshira Maldonado, M.Ed. CPE, CD

Image Credits
Toshira Maldonado