Raeben Nolan, CD

Raeben Nolan is a long-time doula, doula educator, and advocate for doula support who currently serves as the Legacy Health System doula program coordinator.  In this role, she has helped to create and implement a robust and sustainable, culturally and linguistically responsive doula program that serves Oregon Medicaid patients birthing in Legacy Health hospitals throughout the greater Portland, OR area.

She has been a doula since 2001 and received her current Labor Doula and Postpartum Doula certifications through Birthingway College of Midwifery.  She was the doula programs coordinator, curriculum developer, and an educator at Birthingway College from 2013 to 2019.  She is a cofounder of the Oregon Doula Association (ODA) and has served on its board since its inception in 2013.  Over the past decade, as Oregon became the first state to allow Medicaid coverage for doula support, she served on various state commissions and workgroups to advise and advocate for implementation of policies and rules that reduced barriers to doulas while protecting the fidelity of the doula model.  In 2022 and 2023, she and other ODA leaders were successful in lobbying Oregon to increase its doula reimbursement to a livable wage.

As a parent, she was covered by Oregon’s Medicaid health plan for the births of both her children.  Medicaid covered her wonderful midwifery care but did not cover doulas at that time and she could not afford to hire a doula for her births.  She works now to support access to doula care for all pregnant and birthing families covered by Medicaid in Oregon and the rest of the country.  In her free time, she is a medicinal gardener and community herbalist.