Our leadership team is composed of six intelligent and powerful women living in the Omaha metro. Coming from a variety of backgrounds, the team came together to realize our common goal of what birth should look like for families in our city. We are incredibly lucky to work with each other every day.
Click on each name to learn more about the team.
Samantha is a local Omaha mother, scientist, and passionate maternal health advocate. Her first daughter’s birth led her down the path to birth advocacy through work with the International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN). The inequity of access to doulas, childbirth education, and support was highlighted by her own family’s struggle to afford these vital services. Since beginning birth advocacy work in 2014, Samantha has met countless families facing the same barriers, and so Omaha Better Birth Project was born. Her drive to help families achieve supported, respectful, and empowered birth experiences continues to grow each and every day.
Samantha holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Nebraska Omaha and a Master of Public Health from the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Samantha currently works at HCAN.
After the traumatic birth of her first son, Emily became a passionate advocate for informed decision-making in maternal care and the utilization of doulas for pre and postnatal support in expecting families. It is her belief that these services were essential for her subsequent empowered birth experience and that they should be available to everyone, regardless of socioeconomic status. The inequity surrounding these services is what drives Emily in her work with the Omaha Better Birth Project.
Emily holds a Bachelor’s in Business Administration with a concentration in Nonprofit Management and her Master’s in Business Administration with a concentration in Public Administration.
Kirstin is a part-time working mother of three children, including a new baby! Kirstin became passionate about physiological birth and the delicate relationship between the baby and the mother during the birth process while pregnant with her third child. Her first two births were full of medical interventions, and she was determined to finally have an empowered birth, leading her down a path of discovery including the importance of doulas, birth support, informed consent, and evidence-based research about pregnancy and birth.
Becky Baruth, PLMHP, is a certified postpartum doula and mental health therapist serving the Omaha Metro community. Born of her own experiences with both unsupported and supported birth and postpartum, Becky found her calling working with growing families. Through her professional work, Becky has witnessed the direct impact an unsupported birth can have on a growing family, often with long-reaching negative impacts on maternal mental health functioning and overall family functioning. Making professional doula support and quality childbirth education available to all families that desire it, regardless of financial barriers, is a dream for Becky and one she is passionately excited to support.