About Us

Vision

To be a Bay Area leader and critical voice for birthing women and their families, ensuring that our communities have better access to affordable, high quality, and culturally proficient doula care.

Mission

Whatadoula is dedicated to providing labor support, birth advocacy, and family collaboration to ensure that every family has access to a doula for their birth and postpartum period.

Your Birth. Your Way.

Our doulas share the collective knowledge and experience of over 30 years in and around childbearing with the families we serve in hopes of re-building an oral tradition that will have a lasting impact on our community.

Our Story

Whatadoula was founded in 2009 by Lisa Baracker after the birth of her third child Otto and becoming a Heart & Hands certified Birth Doula. As community volunteers, we primarily serve medically underserved populations working with local organizations such as the Homeless Prenatal Program and the San Francisco General Hospital Volunteer Doula Program. 

Since that time, we have advocated for policies and programs that improve the availability of childbirth services that are community driven, financially affordable, and most importantly make each family feel safe and informed about their childbirth experience.

The goal of our organization is to create a voice for the unique and diverse health needs of women and their families before, during and after their child-birthing experience.  

For more on our story and individual experiences Meet our Doulas.