Kyra L. Betts
Maternal Health Strategist · Public Health Scholar · Policy Doula
Kyra L. Betts brings lived experience, community knowledge, and research together to shape programs, policy, and systems that help Black families thrive.
Kyra began as a doula, where she saw how deeply a family’s experience could be shaped by systems far beyond the delivery room.
Today, her work spans maternal health, policy, research, and early childhood. She connects what families experience every day with the programs, institutions, and policies meant to support them.
Kyra is a PhD student in Public Health Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.
Programs, guidance, and partnerships that show how Kyra turns insight into practical action.
Flagship program
Co-Creator · Chief Program Officer
Kyra helps equip Black fathers with practical knowledge and tools to support, advocate, and participate across pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.
Early childhood · The Doula Lab
Vice President · Director of Fetus to Five Programming
Kyra leads programming that connects family support, child safety, and development from pregnancy through the early childhood years.
Visit The Doula Lab ↗
Clinical guidance
Kyra helped develop practical guidance for hospitals and care teams working to integrate community doulas into clinical care.
Read the guidance ↗Kyra brings experience across birth work, research, programs, and community partnerships to conversations about maternal health, fatherhood, policy, and family care.
Invite Kyra to speak
How care, access, community voice, and policy shape families before, during, and after birth.
Helping fathers understand, prepare, support, and advocate.
Turning lived experience and research into policy without leaving community behind.
Thoughts
I write about maternal health, fatherhood, policy, family systems, and the questions that keep showing up in the work.
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Doulas are not a cure-all. Black mothers do not need another responsibility. We need healthcare institutions willing to change
When childcare is unaffordable or unavailable, families lose choices about work, school, health, and rest. That makes childcare a systems issue, not only a private family problem.
Media
Conversations, interviews, and features from Kyra’s public work.
Television · 2025
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Profile · 2026
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Feature · 2024
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Contact
For speaking, training, research, media, or collaboration inquiries, get in touch with Kyra.
Contact Kyra