Birth Braid is a participatory project that celebrates connections between postpartum people. It attempts to visualize a collective network of support that can be created through small linkages.

The sculpture is made up of individual braids that are created by people who are in or have experienced the postpartum time. In making a braid for the project, each person shares a small part of their postpartum experience with the community. Together, the braid is a collective visualization of the care-sharing network that is built by these individuals sharing together.

The postpartum time is so tender, vulnerable, powerful, intense, exhausting, painful, unfathomable, foggy…………. it is uniquely experienced by each individual person, touching the range of possible human emotions and experiences. Its rawness is unlike any other time of life and has the capacity to break apart who we are completely and rebuild us into new people entirely. It is impossible to adequately explain, but through the sharing of multiple experiences of it, we can start to paint a collective picture of something that is undefinable and yet defines the beginnings (and sometimes ends) of human existence.

For the purpose of this project, the postpartum time is defined as the period of time after the end of a pregnancy regardless of its outcome. (This project is inclusive of postpartum experiences of live birth, stillbirth, pregnancy loss, and abortion) The length of the postpartum period is defined by the person experiencing it. Anyone of any gender who has been pregnant, and/or identifies as having experienced the postpartum period is invited to participate. (Please note that “postpartum” just means the period of time after pregnancy, it does not necessarily refer to postpartum depression or other postpartum conditions, although we welcome sharing experiences with postpartum conditions if participants feel compelled to.)

The Birth Braid project was conceived of in a country that has the capacity to adequately support pregnant and birthing people but chooses not to. The project recognizes that birth and postpartum outcomes and systems in the US are inexcusably inadequate and are disproportionately violent toward Indigenous, Black, Brown, queer, and low income birthing people. While there are beautiful generative projects that happen in the empty spaces created by this violence and inequality, ultimately the root causes must be addressed in order to change the outcomes. This project does not claim to do that, instead it is a small portrait of experience and connection within the context of our current circumstances.

This ongoing participatory project seeks to create and commemorate small moments of connection that hopefully blossom into bigger systems of support over time.

Birth Braid has 3 major components

  • the sculpture

  • the resource list

  • the stories


How to participate in this project:

Are you a pregnant, postpartum person, or recently postpartum person who wants to participate in the Birth Braid project? click the button to participate

connect with us on instagram for updates

The sculpture

The sculpture consists of braids made by people who are in, or have experienced the postpartum period. The braids are mailed to me, where I connect them to each other into one massive collective braid. The participants are invited to make a braid of any size out of anything they have easy access to. Each braid is a unique portrait of the individual who made it, and the time of life in which it was made. The sculpture is carefully stored and shown in public settings, sometimes along with the stories shared by participants.

Each braid is photographed and cataloged before it is added to the larger braid.

The sculpture will never be for sale, and any money accrued from its showing will always be donated to vetted perinatal support organizations. Wherever the piece is shown, it will be accompanied by the info to donate to at least one local perinatal support org.

Click here to view the sculpture

The Stories

People who send in braids are invited (but not required!) to share stories, thoughts, secrets, reflections, etc… of their postpartum time. Some share advice, some share stories of helpful or unhelpful experiences, some share raw feelings, poems, questions…. there is no preconception of what should be shared. As with the Braids, participants can choose to have their name attached to their story, or to share it anonymously. All the stories are shared exactly as they were submitted, and are not edited from the participant’s intention.

The stories are shared as a blog + are sometimes printed or projected and shown along with the braid. Presentation of the stories varies based on the context.

Click here to read the stories. or to share a story.

The Resource List

In addition to the sculpture + the stories, we maintain a collaborative resource list through google sheets. Anyone can access and edit this list. please note that there are different sheets for different states (check the tabs at the bottom.) Because this list is crowdsourced, the veracity or currentness of the resources can’t be guaranteed, If you notice that something is out-of-date, please update it. Click here to access the resource list.

Project History

The Birth Braid in 2016

The original concept for the piece, conceived in 2016 included a formal care-sharing system that would connect together three participants in a network of support: a pregnant person, a postpartum person, and an experienced parent. The experienced parent would go to the home of the postpartum person and help with small household tasks, and to be a listening ear. Meanwhile the pregnant person would babysit the experienced parent’s child or children, thus weaving together three individuals in a care-sharing relationship. Once the pregnant person entered their postpartum phase, and the postpartum person exited theirs, they would move into the next support roles. This would theoretically create a progressing connected community of people caring for and receiving care from each other. The process of the three individuals stepping into each other’s homes, caring for each other and then stepping into the next position resembled a braid.

The implementation of this system in reality was clunky, and once I was in my own postpartum period, I recognized that who is invited into the tender space of the postpartum period is incredibly personal. I myself would not have wanted a stranger to join me then, even if it weren’t during one of the intense and uncertain chapters of the covid pandemic, as my postpartum time was. Thus, the project has shifted, and the interweaving care-sharing network has become more symbolic, and also more inclusive of postpartum experiences that don’t result in a new baby coming into the home.

Braiding is also a tender form of caregiving that is often shared between parents and children and siblings, and communities, and even a form of self care. Braiding has roots in many different cultures, geographies, and time periods. As a doula, in one of the first births I attended, I was asked to braid my client’s hair between her contractions not long before her baby was born. I was happy to do so, and it felt like a tender and ancient care practice.


How to support this project:

  • Donate: If you are able to donate money, please find your local birth worker organizations, perinatal health support systems, and birth/perinatal care focused community orgs to support. Pledge a regular donation, these issues are ongoing.

  • Activate: Reach out to your representatives at the local, state, and national level and demand better supports for pregnant and birthing people. follow your local birth-worker led and reproductive justice activist groups and support the work they are doing. Unequal access and structural discrimination (race, class, gender, disability, and LGBTQ based discrimination) cause deep harm in the postpartum landscape. Support community-based solutions and advocate for structural change to better the outcomes: Universal healthcare, paid family leave, sick time, universal childcare, wage equity, housing equity etc…. these issues are all linked.

  • Connect: Do you know someone in their postpartum time? Reach out and ask what they need. Tips: remember that advice, when unsolicited, can be more harmful than helpful. instead, ask what a person wants or needs, and/or offer specific things like “I am going to the grocery store tomorrow, what can I bring you?” or “I’d love to deliver you lunch today, what would you like?” “Coffee delivery! How do you take your coffee?” “If you leave a bag of laundry on your porch, I will return it washed, dried, and folded.” Dropping things off doesn’t entitle you to a visit— offer to leave items at the door without asking to come in. Visits can be draining, and if someone wants you to come in, they will probably invite you. Often just knowing you are thinking of them is enough to build a bridge for them to reach out if needed, always practice non-judgmental listening, and remember, their postpartum experience is not the same as yours, leave space for those essential differences.

  • Share: Think someone you know would benefit from reading the stories or browsing the resource list? Do you know someone who might like to participate? Please share this project with them. People of any gender who have experienced the end of a pregnancy are invited to join.

About Birth Braid | The Sculpture | The Stories | The Resource List | Participate