Emily Jacobson: ‘I’m meant to do this forever’

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

May 19, 2025

NORTHEAST WISCONSIN – After attending more than 400 births and providing roughly 17,000 hours of postpartum care over the last 10 years, experienced doula and entrepreneur Emily Jacobson said she has much to celebrate, but plenty more to accomplish.

After graduating college – roughly four years prior to starting her professional doula agency, Green Bay Doulas, in 2015 – Jacobson said she was living in Madison when she discovered her passion for the profession.

“I started in 2011,” she said. “My sister-in-law asked me to be in the room with her for the birth of my niece, and I had no idea what I was doing – I didn’t have children. So I went to the Birthing Center in Madison at the time and just asked if there was a book I could read on supporting some(one in) labor, and they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s called a doula.’”

After hearing the term again on a popular Bravo TV Show at the time – “Pregnant in Heels” – Jacobson said she began seriously researching what a doula was.

“As I started reading the books and kind of getting into this, I was like, ‘Oh, this could maybe be a career for me,’” she said. “Well, fast forward, I went to my niece’s birth, and (it) was like (how) Oprah says you have your ‘aha’ moments – I was like, ‘I’m meant to do this forever.’”

Setting the standard

In 2012, Jacobson said she moved back to Green Bay and found that “doulas were unheard of” in the Northeast region.

“I quickly learned that doula work is not sustainable on its own,” she said. “You are very limited in the amount of clientele you can actually support.”

The services doulas provide, Jacobson said, are not considered “medical” and, therefore, not covered by insurance – despite their proven benefits.

“When you have a doula, your chances of (receiving) a C-section are decreased by 50%,” she said. “Just (with) the mere presence of a doula, NICU admissions (go) down by 30% (as well).”

Regardless, Jacobson said a doula’s client base is limited to those who can afford to pay out of pocket.

“Because we don’t do anything medical, we don’t get a billing code, and you can only bill insurance if you have a billing code,” she said.

The financial barrier, she said, is only the first that families must hurdle to access quality doula care – the second being a lack of industry regulation.

“There are more than 200 (doula) training organizations out there, all of them unregulated,” she said. “So, you really can become a doula in one weekend, if you want to, but it’s about the field work.”

In a “completely unregulated” industry, Jacobson said she saw a need to establish a centralized agency where families can not only find trustworthy care, but where experienced doulas can access regular work, as well as professional support.

“(Doulas) have to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 (days a year, because) you never know when a baby is going to be born,” she said. “So, being a one-person show (and) starting my own family, I thought, ‘this is something I really want to do, but how do I make it sustainable?’… That’s how the idea of Green Bay Doulas came about.”

Now with a team of 11 like-minded, similarly trained doulas, Jacobson said Green Bay Doulas has tirelessly worked toward providing support to as many mothers as possible, while simultaneously providing support for each other.

“We’ve created our own internal community of independent contractors that are (here) to support each other,” she said. “We mentor each other, and we learn from each other.”

No matter how a client wants to give birth, or which service they are receiving, Jacobson said all of her agency’s affiliated doulas understand the standard of care they are held to.

“That’s why I really liked creating the agency, because I could create my own set of standards,” she said.

Serving the Greater Green Bay and Appleton areas, Jacobson said Green Bay Doulas makes finding the right support easier.

“When people come to Green Bay Doulas, it’s not that they have to interview with 50 different doulas,” she said. “We do a general intake with them.”

That general intake, Jacobson said, involves asking prospective clients questions like where they’d like to give birth, if they’d like it to be medicated or unmedicated and more.

“We find out what their wants and needs are,” she said. “We (consider) availability, personality styles – then we play matchmaker.”

Jacobson said clients never have to wonder if their doula is properly trained and prepared.

“I’ve already vetted the ones that are working here,” she said. “They’re going to (provide a) high level of care, and you don’t have to worry about, ‘Well, where did you train?’ ‘How was your training?’ ‘How long have you been doing this?’”

Grab your toolbox

Because every birthing experience is special and unique, Jacobson said she’s tailored Green Bay Doulas’ services to “meet people where they’re at and make sure they feel prepared for (the) big day.”

“Because you can’t get it back – there are no do-overs,” she said. “It’s a very sensitive and vulnerable space for people to be in.”

Jacobson said Green Bay Doulas offers classes and events covering topics ranging from childbirth, breastfeeding, postpartum and newborn care, as well as classes for new and emerging grandparents.

“Parenting is very different through the different generations,” she said. “So we talk (to people) from the silent generation all the way down to Gen Z – and I’m going to have to change it soon to include the Alpha generation – (teaching) how parenting has changed.”

Green Bay Doulas’ services, Jacobson said, are split into two categories: pregnancy and postpartum.

“Each family is different,” she said. “Not every family wants both services. Some want one and not the other.”

Jacobson said Green Bay Doulas’ pregnancy services are “kind of like a Sandals Resort.”

“We’re all-inclusive,” she laughed. “So, they pay a set price of $1,750, and that includes two doulas who are on-call for them 24/7. Any questions that they have, we help guide them. It also includes (our) childbirth education class and lactation class.”

Jacobson said pregnant clients can also add the “newborn care and postpartum planning” classes to their regimen if requested.

“Many people will prepare for childbirth, but they’re not preparing for postpartum,” she said.

Pre-birth, Jacobson said Green Bay Doulas’ all-inclusive pregnancy service includes in-home birth planning.

“We go to their house and talk about their birth plan – talk about their wishes for this birth,” she said. “We know that birth is unpredictable, so (we) really prepare them to just bring the toolbox.”

Jacobson said doulas help clients “prepare their toolbox” because they never know what tool will be required for the job.

“When you’re going to fix something, you don’t just grab a hammer – you bring the toolbox because you don’t know what you’re going to need,” she said.

In regard to postpartum care, Jacobson said Green Bay Doulas’ services are sold in hourly packages and specifically tailored to the client’s needs or requests.

“People buy a package of hours and they use the hours as needed,” she said. “We have some families who don’t really know what they’re going to need, so they will usually start with an introductory package of 30 hours, but then we have some families who are like, ‘I want three nights a week for the first five weeks, and then we’ll go to two nights a week, and then one night a week…’”

Jacobson said doulas will also discuss an exit plan with their clients to ensure that when their services are no longer needed, the family feels prepared.

“It’s definitely not something we ever suggest – cold turkey stop(ping) – because you are used to not having to wake up or attend to the needs of a baby during the middle of the night,” she said. “So, we will always create an exit plan.”

By three or four months, Jacobson said both “moms and babies” have typically established healthy habits through the support and assistance of their doula.

Industry activism

“Making doulas an essential member of the care team,” Jacobson said, is a central goal in all her work.

“Statistically, one in three women experience birth trauma,” she said. “(Making sure) they feel empowered about their experience and feel like they actually have informed consent is really our main goal.”

Within the hospital system of Brown County, Jacobson said there’s roughly an “80% epidural rate.”

“But a lot of the women we talk to say, ‘If I had the proper support, I probably wouldn’t have gotten one,’” she said. “There are some people who choose (to get an epidural) because that’s what they want – and they should be able to choose it if that’s what they want. But if they’re doing it and they’re making choices just because they don’t have the right support system, that’s what I don’t like.”

The lack of centralized regulation within the doula industry, Jacobson said, led her to not only establish Green Bay Doulas, but the Wisconsin Doula Association (WDA) as well.

“By the nature of our profession, we can’t be employees,” she said. “There are some months where it’s feast or famine, and, again, that goes back to the sustainability factor. That’s why I had to create a nonprofit in 2019 to create a home for doulas in the State of Wisconsin.”

The WDA’s mission, Jacobson said, is to gather doulas from across the state to address industry-wide needs, as well as to establish centralized legitimacy within the profession.

“We’re trying to gather the doulas in the state and (ask), ‘what do we need?’” she said. “‘How can we go to Madison and really try to make change for this career?’ … We are not Medicaid reimbursable, but yet, 50% of women birthing in Brown County are on Medicaid. That’s what keeps us up at night – the families that can afford us can have us, (but) all women need to have support during this time.”

Some parents are able to derive support from older family members, but Jacobson said this practice is becoming less and less accessible for younger generations.

“That’s not really how it works anymore,” she said. “We have a lot of families who are transplants to the community (and) their parents are the ones (buying them) 100 hours of postpartum care, because they need to know they’re taken care of.”

Jacobson said she founded the WDA to move the profession forward and to a point where its services are regulated and accessible to everyone.

“The mission that we have for the nonprofit is to connect and advocate, provide resources for doulas with a unified approach to birth work and foster professional networks,” she said. “We also need to make sustainable and standardized practices.”

To broaden the reach of her advocacy, Jacobson said she ran for and was elected to the Brown County Board of Supervisors – a role, among others, that’s helped her develop connections with individuals at the county and state level.

“If I’m (spending every day) trying to make change in my community, why don’t I do it at a higher level as well – which then affords me a connection to the county, which then affords me connections to Madison?” she said. “So, when I show up in Madison, I already know my people. They’re my neighbors – I elected them.”

Ten-year celebrations

To commemorate a decade of service in Northeast Wisconsin, Jacobson said Green Bay Doulas is hosting a couple of events.

“(On) June 6, we’re going to have a party at Bay Beach (Amusement Park) to celebrate with our clients and friends,” she said. “And then (on) June 11, in the late afternoon, I’m doing an open house at the office (located at 441 South Jackson St. in Green Bay) for anybody to come through.”

As she looks back on the last decade of her journey, Jacobson said she is excited to continue furthering the doula profession for the benefit of both doulas and families.

“I learned this term that is my theme of 2025 – ‘relentless incrementalism,’” she said. “We chip away to try and make it better for (families), and then we go to our own profession, and we chip away to try and make it better for us.”

Jacobson said her passion, however, will always lie in her work with Green Bay Doulas.

“I hope we stay a staple in the Greater Northeastern Wisconsin area,” she said. “To be people’s first choice for support and encouragement and education during pregnancy, birth and postpartum.”

For more information on Green Bay Doulas, find it on social media or visit greenbaydoulas.com.