How one First Nation hopes to bring birthing back to the community and improve outcomes [Video]

It was New Year’s Eve when Tenielle Easter started bleeding. Staff at the nearby hospital confirmed her fears — she was having a miscarriage.

“It was very, very hard and traumatizing for me,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do. I feel like everything just went downhill.”

The experience sent Easter, then 18, into a tailspin — years of recklessness, substance abuse and bad decisions.

When she got pregnant again three years later, she knew things had to change.

“I was just scared that it might happen again, that I would have to go through it again, because it truly is a hard thing. You don’t get over it. You just learn to live with it,” Easter said.

But this time, her community, Opaskwayak Cree Nation, had introduced a doula program, offering pregnant women education and support.