Minnesota Prison Doula Project

Working in compassionate solidarity with incarcerated parents to create community, opportunity, and change.

What We Do

The Minnesota Prison Doula Project (MnPDP) provides pregnancy and parenting support for incarcerated people. We provide birth support from trained doulas, as well as group-based and individual education and support. The goal is to nurture healthy parent-child relationships and increase parenting confidence and skills.

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We work with people inside Minnesota’s only women’s state prison and those held in county correctional facilities. We also support our clients upon release with resources to help facilitate a successful transition into our community.

  • Emotional, physical & informational support during the birthing year through a relationship with a trained birth professional for pregnant people as they move through the justice system.

❊ Doula Care

  • One-hour parent-child contact visits supported by program staff held within correctional facilities to provide an opportunity to practice parenting skills, maintain connections & repair emotional trauma for children.

❊ Supportive Visitation

  • Pregnancy & Beyond Group: Weekly prenatal and early parenting education & support group for incarcerated mothers in their birthing year.

  • Mothering Inside Group: Weekly parenting education & support group for incarcerated mothers.

  • Parenting Inside Out: Weekly parenting education & support group for incarcerated parents.

❊ Group Education

  • 30-minute individual supportive peer counseling for incarcerated parents. Provides an opportunity for emotional support, problem solving to improve coping on the inside with the goal of increasing successful reentry upon release.

❊ One-on-One Counseling

Featured on BBC News

Meet the parents supported by the Minnesota Prison Birth Project who are navigating separation from their children while experiencing incarceration.

Support MN’s Prison Doula Project

Your donation will provide direct services to clients, research, and advocacy that transforms for the experiences of pregnant parents navigating Minnesota’s criminal legal system.

Donate

Supporters

  • Allina

  • Catholic Campaign for Human Development

  • ​Constellation Fund and Beyond Dollars Program

  • Ittleson Foundation

  • Medica Foundation

  • Minnesota Department of Health

  • National Institute of Health

  • Otto Bremer Trust

  • Target Creative

  • Together Rising

  • UCare

  • University of Minnesota

  • W.K. Kellogg Foundation

Advanced Prison Doula Training

Become certified as an Advanced Prison Doula and deepen your ability to support pregnant and parenting people impacted by incarceration.

Learn more

Wish List

These are our current program needs. Please contact us if you have anything on this list that you would like to donate. Thank you!

  • Commercial printer/copier

  • Printer paper

  • Mead notebooks- no metal

  • Pocket folders, any color including clear- no metal

  • Clear pocket folders

  • Colored gel pens

  • Colored pencils

  • Markers

  • Maternity clothes, all sizes

  • Baby clothes, all sizes

  • Baby items

  • Hygiene products

  • New car seats

  • New breast pumps

  • Pumping supplies

  • Books- parenting, baby names, children's books 

  • Toy, cards or board games to use during parent/child contact visits 

  • Cozy blankets and other comfort items for babies, children and adults

Amazon Wishlist for Clients Returning Home
Amazon Wishlist for Class Materials

Gifts may be mailed to: 

Minnesota Prison Doula Project 

PO Box 18603

Minneapolis, MN 55418​

Our Resources

Explore our range of products designed to support pregant people and raise awarness of our mission.

Pregnancy Resource Guide for Incarcerated Parents
Pregnancy Resource Guide for Incarcerated Parents
$8.00
Pregnancy & Beyond
Pregnancy & Beyond
$8.00
Prison Birth Storytelling Project
Prison Birth Storytelling Project
$0.00

  • "You only have 24 hours to hold your baby, to love your baby. It makes you not want to sleep. It makes you not want to eat. It makes you not want to take care of yourself because you want to use all those 48 hours to focus solely on your baby that you know you can't see."

    —Emma

  • "Separation and everything from my children, also not being able to do the motherly functionality of being with the baby. I missed all of it. So, basically I had a baby but he was a stranger. Not knowing who he was, not knowing his personality, not knowing what kind of baby he was because he was raised by my family."

    —Natalie

  • "I was shackled to the bed the whole time. If I had to go to the bathroom, one of the guards had to follow me. So there was really no privacy, no nothing. When I had my C-section, the guard actually had to come in with me too, to make sure nothing could happen."

    —Amanda

  • "In this time period you can't call your family member and tell them that you're in labor or that you've delivered or anything. You're having to [hope] somebody else will find me. It’s devastating to leave the hospital with your baby there and nobody there with them, not knowing for sure that someone would safely guide them. It's literally like your, your heart has been ripped out."

    —Megan

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Contact the Minnesota Prison Doula Project

612-440-9682

info@mnprisondoulaproject.org

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Minnesota Prison Doula Project
PO Box 18603

Minneapolis, MN 55418