pregnancy
Best: Soon-To-Be Moms Winners etween blogs and Facebook groups and What To Expect When You’re Expecting and friends and your mom, you might be suffering from information overload. We get it, and we can help. Every year, we ask our readers to vote for the people and places they trust to support them on their journey to motherhood—childbirth instructors, hospitals and more. So if your head is spinning with all the resources to be found in DFW, take a look at these recommendations, and breathe. You’ve got this. (The winners were originally announced in the February 2020 issue of DFWChild.) TARRANT COUNTY TONYA BUFFINGTON, CD – RIGHT HAND DOULA
Best Doulas DENTON COUNTY MARIA POKLUDA, CLD – GREAT EXPECTATIONS BIRTH
With about 13 years of experience serving families, Maria Pokluda’s main goal is to help moms determine the best childbirth plan for their needs. Great Expectations Birth offers services ranging from childbirth classes and lactation support to full doula care. (Readers also voted Pokluda “Best Childbirth Instructor.”) Although she assists families with a variety of care needs, because of her own experience with infertility, she has a special passion for helping families coping with infertility themselves, in addition to supporting families who deliver at hospitals and are planning VBACs. greatexpectationsbirth.com 16
baby | 2020
Inspired by her own experience with professional birthing support, Tonya Buffington decided to pursue a doula certification. Now with 12 years of doula experience, Buffington (who has assisted at over 400 births) is a placenta encapsulation specialist and post-birth belly binder too. Our readers call on her for her passion for assisting new moms and families; through Right Hand Doula, Buffington provides birth plan assistance, labor support and breastfeeding support. righthanddoula.com DALLAS COUNTY MELISSA ESPEY-MUELLER, PRODOULA CD LABOR & EDUCATOR, CLE – NORTH DALLAS DOULA ASSOCIATES
As owner and director of North Dallas Doula Associates, Melissa Espey-Mueller offers doula services to thousands of families each year; moms trust
her for her dedication to each birth and array of services. Espey-Mueller—a DONA- and ProDoula-trained, master-level doula—keeps up with moms after delivery through postpartum doula support (from emotional support to pumping and bottlefeeding aid) and offers placenta encapsulation, pre-conception planning and certified lactation consulting—to name a few of her services. She also is a gynecologic teaching associate (GTA) through Texas A&M Health Science Center and was voted Dallas County’s “Best Childbirth Instructor” by our readers. 107 Murray St., Dallas northdallasdoulas.com COLLIN COUNTY LAURA FORTNER, CD (DONA) & PRODOULA CD LABOR – NORTH DALLAS DOULA ASSOCIATES
Though she was our Collin County winner, moms all over DFW count on Laura Fortner for her nonjudgmental support and impressive expertise—she’s attended more than 400 births, including home and hospital births, C-sections and VBACs. Part of the North Dallas Doula Associates family, she offers birth doula services and lactation assistance for her clients (who can get other services, including placenta encapsulation, through NDDA). In addition to her certifications as a birth doula and lactation educator, this year Fortner will add VBAC Link certification—becoming one of only a few doulas
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north texas’ top childbirth resources
