Photo by Dr. Lakeeta Watts
Dr. Lakeeta Watts
Dr. Lakeeta Watts
As a mother of five children, Dr. Lakeeta Watts has made it her mission to provide the services and resources to birthing mothers she did not have herself. Watts wears many hats in the birth work field, being a certified community health worker, full spectrum holistic doula, lactation specialist and student midwife. She is also founder of Essentially Empowered Inc, a nonprofit organization providing trauma-informed perinatal and mental health services to folks of all ages.
“For anyone having a baby, you’ll never forget that experience,” Watts says. “Some people grieve the experiences that they didn’t have, or they remember and carry the trauma from those experiences into their next pregnancy.”
As a full spectrum holistic doula, Watts’ practice covers all aspects of perinatal care. Her Essentially Empowered team has 10 active doulas servicing counties across Southeast Wisconsin, caring for birthing mothers for up to a year postpartum. With their postpartum home, mothers have access to doulas or nurses around the clock as they heal. Educational workshops for both mothers and fathers are offered as well.
Working with Moms
Watts elaborates, “We work with moms who are either trying to get pregnant, or from the very beginning of their pregnancy to whatever that birth outcome might be, whether they choose to have an abortion or if they have a miscarriage or stillborn baby—we support them through all of that. Dads can experience paternal postpartum depression, and we don’t want to leave them out of the conversation.”
She adds, “We educate clients on the different labor positions that they can be in, or on their birth rights and that they can refuse certain things. When we educate the community on these things, they know how to advocate for themselves.”
With her colleague Dr. Shanice Baquet, Watts has also established Aja Healing and Masika Health Wellness Clinic, a nonprofit mobile clinic, to improve perinatal and wellness access to underserved communities. The clinic combines functional medical programs and perinatal services with holistic modalities like energy and bodywork therapies, herbal remedies, ayurveda and IV hydration. In partnership with Nurse Teresita Simmons, Watts runs a prenatal care coordination agency for doulas to have sustainable income outside of grants.
Health Disparities
Born and raised in Milwaukee, Watts has witnessed and experienced firsthand the disparities in Black and Brown communities regarding perinatal care and education. “We get treated differently than some white moms,” she notes. “We see a lack of education around what a healthy pregnancy should look like, as well as what a healthy outcome should look like.”
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Watts shares, “My first two births were very traumatic experiences. I was asking for things I felt were being overlooked, and because of that, I started thinking about how other moms have felt.”
Her first child, her oldest son, was born prematurely and spent time in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). “I was freaked out because nobody was explaining anything to me until I was in the moment,” Watts remembers. “I wasn’t taught about breastfeeding at the time and didn’t know the benefits of breast milk.”
Providing Resources
Upon having her second child, her oldest daughter, Watts paid more attention to the care she received as a young mother. “I wanted to get more into community work,” she continues. Watts started her birth work career as a prenatal and childcare coordinator. “I realized how impactful it was to be able to follow a mom during pregnancy, give her resources, provide education and see her flourish and feel confident in carrying her baby.”
She became a doula in 2018 on scholarship from Doulaing the Doula with Dr. Amy Gilliland. As she continued to serve mothers, Watts created a curriculum known as the TRUST Plan to train new doulas, which she continues to follow today. The plan gives mothers a safe space to release or process maternal trauma.
“If they’re first-time moms and still nervous, we’ll provide them that space as well,” Watts mentions. “There’s a disservice with perinatal care in postpartum when the birthing person will have the baby and they go home, but then they don’t see their provider for six weeks. After those six weeks are up, they don’t go back until they need to, and sometimes that’s a year later. With that, we’ve noticed gaps around catching postpartum depression or pre-eclampsia.”
Essentially Empowered
Watts started Essentially Empowered, Inc. after tragedy struck her family. “On September 4, 2016, my oldest son was hit by a truck,” she explains. “He was 10 at the time, and my other children saw it. We got them into therapy, but two weeks later, my sister went missing.”
Facing multiple hardships at once, Watts’ family ended up getting cut off from therapy services from missing too many visits. This prompted her to start her own group serving youth and adults who have experienced or witnessed trauma, which evolved into the nonprofit organization in 2020. When teen mothers began frequently attending group meetings at the library, Watts incorporated her doula work and perinatal services into Essentially Empowered, Inc.
Dr. Watts has continued her trajectory in birth work in becoming a Lactation Specialist and Formula Feeding Counselor, plus she is currently a student midwife apprenticing under Sabrina Foulks-Thomas. To get in touch with Essentially Empowered Inc, contact essentiallyempowered@outlook.com. For the mobile clinic, visit www.ajaandmasika.com/contact.
