Ziah McKinney

About these Clinics/Practices

Full Spectrum Doula, Patient Advocate, Disability Support Doula, Childbirth Education, Disability Lactation Support

I have supported Disabled people, specializing in EDS/HSD, through fertility, pregnancy, birth, lactation, postpartum, and home set up since 2018. As a Full Spectrum Doula I support people along the full range of reproductive support, including fertility, loss and postpartum. Birthing Advocacy Doula Training/BADT centers informational and educational advocacy training for marginalized populations including Disabled, LGBTQIA+, and BIPOC.

I am also an Evidence Based Birth® Childbirth Education Instructor that teaches a Disabled Parents Specialty Class, both virtually and In Person in the Atlanta Metro area.

I have created EDS informational handouts for Pregnancy, Labor and Birth, Postpartum, and Nursing/Lactation that help both the person with EDS and their care teams understand how EDS can affect each stage and how to support them. The goal of the handouts are to provide evidence based information behind the label of “high risk” that so many birthing EDS people receive. By providing information and resources, the birthing person and their care team can understand what risks may be involved for that individual (it is very different from person to person since we know EDS affects each person differently), and how informed support can mitigate risks and make pregnancy, birth and parenthood a safer and more enjoyable experience. I am happy to meet with the birthing team, either in person or virtually, to provide insight into how to mitigate risks.

In order to prepare myself to support birth clients and create the handouts, I have been taken each type of the Ehlers-Danlos Society ECHO (over 150 hours), as well as keeping up to date on research as it comes out. I worked with Fertility Counselor Erica Evans to create a EDS Hypermobility Reproductive Health, Fertility, Pregnancy, and Birth Survey in order to inform our practice by listening to the actual reproductive experiences of people with EDS/HSD. The survey collected 337 responses with both prepared questions and space for story telling in their own words. This survey has been instrumental in informing us of what kind of support EDS people want in their own words vs only relying on research papers that had research and funding restrictions or clinicians telling us about possible risks. As an EDS person who struggled with infertility and had a pregnancy that had preventable issues, I firmly believe in “nothing about us, without us.”

Professional Designation: BADT FSD, EBB® CBE