New York City’s Citywide Doula Initiative has provided doula care to more than 4,200 people since launching in 2022, expanding free support for pregnant New Yorkers in communities facing health and socioeconomic inequities.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene marked the milestone Aug. 24 while recognizing six hospitals that completed the initiative’s Doula-Friendly Hospital Program.
The hospitals are Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, Montefiore Medical Center, NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, NYC Health + Hospitals/Jacobi, NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln and NYC Health + Hospitals/Metropolitan. The program helps hospitals adopt policies that recognize doulas as part of the maternity care team.
“This milestone speaks to the power of one of our City’s most successful programs: the Citywide Doula Initiative, which has already supported thousands of families, including in communities that have been too often left behind by our health care system,” Mamdani said. “4,000 people served is only the beginning. We are expanding access through our public hospitals and to City employees because every New Yorker deserves support to bring a child into this world safely and with care.”
The initiative provides free, non-medical doula support to income-eligible pregnant New Yorkers, with a focus on neighborhoods identified as having significant health and socioeconomic needs. It also aims to reach Black and Latino New Yorkers, people living in homeless shelters or foster care and those who will be teen parents.
The hospital program has helped increase connections between patients and doulas. Referrals from participating hospitals rose sixfold, from 100 between 2019 and 2021 to 603 between 2023 and 2025. City data also show that 6.7 % of New Yorkers who gave birth in 2025 reported receiving doula support during pregnancy, up from 4.9 % in 2022.
Brooklyn Perinatal Network is among four community-based organizations implementing the initiative, alongside Ancient Song, Bronx (Re)Birth and Progress and Caribbean Women’s Health Association.
The next group of participating hospitals includes NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County, NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens, St. Barnabas Hospital and SUNY Downstate Medical Center.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2027, MetroPlusHealth will add doula coverage to its Gold Plan for city employees and their families, including up to eight prenatal or postpartum visits and one in-person labor and delivery support visit per pregnancy.
