Introducing 518 Birth Project

There’s a lot of talk about building a “village” when you have a baby.

But what happens when you don’t have one?

For many families, pregnancy, birth, and the early postpartum months happen without the kind of hands-on support that used to come from extended family and close-knit communities. Parents are expected to prepare for birth, recover physically, learn how to feed and care for a newborn, function on very little sleep, and somehow keep the rest of life moving at the same time.

We created 518 Birth Project because we believe families deserve more support than that.

What is 518 Birth Project?

518 Birth Project is a Capital Region doula agency providing birth and postpartum support to families throughout the 518.

Our doulas offer practical, emotional, and informational support through pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period. That can look different for every family.

Sometimes it means having a calm, familiar person beside you throughout labor.

Sometimes it means coming home from the hospital and having someone there who knows newborns, understands postpartum recovery, and can help you figure out what you actually need.

Sometimes it means getting a few uninterrupted hours of sleep while someone you trust cares for your baby overnight.

And sometimes it simply means having someone walk into the room and say, “I’ve got this part. You can rest.”

More Than Finding a Doula

There are incredible doulas working independently throughout the Capital Region. We know because we’ve worked alongside many of them.

But hiring an individual doula can sometimes mean that families are relying on one person to be available through an unpredictable birth, illness, childcare emergencies, vacations, or the realities of life.

518 Birth Project was built to offer something different: the personal relationship of doula care with the support of a team behind it.

Our agency structure allows us to coordinate scheduling, provide backup support, and connect families with doulas whose experience and personalities fit what they’re looking for.

You still get to know and trust the person supporting your family. They just don’t have to do it alone.

We’re Building Something for Doulas, Too

There’s another part of this project that matters deeply to us.

We want doula work to be sustainable.

Doulas do incredibly valuable work, but running a doula business also means finding clients, marketing, answering inquiries, writing contracts, collecting payments, managing schedules, arranging backup coverage, and trying to build professional relationships—all while actually supporting families.

518 Birth Project gives doulas the infrastructure to spend more of their time doing what they became doulas to do: care for people.

We’re building a community where doulas can receive referrals, professional development, mentorship, backup support, shared resources, and connection with other birth workers.

Because supported doulas are better able to support families.

Birth Is Only the Beginning

We also believe our culture puts enormous emphasis on preparing for birth while giving families remarkably little preparation for what comes afterward.

The postpartum period deserves just as much care.

Our goal is to make postpartum support feel less like something reserved for families who are struggling and more like a normal part of having a baby.

Postpartum doulas can help with newborn care, feeding support, recovery, meals and household tasks, sibling transitions, overnight care, and—perhaps most importantly—giving new parents space to sleep, eat, shower, recover, and learn their baby without feeling like they have to manage everything themselves.

We’re also developing postpartum packages that bring other forms of care into the equation, connecting families with trusted local professionals and services so that support extends beyond the hours a doula is physically in your home.

Why “518 Birth Project”?

Because we’re interested in something bigger than a single service.

We want to help build stronger connections between families, doulas, healthcare providers, educators, lactation professionals, therapists, pelvic health providers, and the many other people who care for families during this enormous transition.

We want families in the Capital Region to know what support exists—and to be able to access it more easily.

We want doulas to have meaningful, sustainable work.

We want healthcare providers to know the doulas walking into their hospitals and feel confident that they understand their role as part of the support team.

And we want new parents to feel a little less like they’re supposed to figure all of this out by themselves.

Welcome to 518 Birth Project.

We’re just getting started.