About Us:

Birthsmarter lives in the space where biology meets society, wisdom meets data, and empathy meets activism.

• Meet our Team
• Read Our Core Values

Our Birth Story

When our founder, Ashley Brichter, gave birth for the first time in 2014, she had experience with hundreds of families as a doula and birth educator. She already knew everything traditional birth classes were teaching. She felt like she'd done everything right. Then — like so many — her birth did not “go as planned.” Ashley went back to the drawing board. She questioned everything she learned becoming a doula, a childbirth educator, and a parent herself.

Birthsmarter is the result.

Birthsmarter was born with a single monthly birth class in Brooklyn, NY in mid-2019 and has grown into a virtual platform reaching families all over the country. In a world where it can be difficult to keep sight of what is truly important, Birthsmarter is here to model critical, creative, and compassionate thinking, to help you develop a framework for interpreting “expert” advice, and to support you while navigating a system that is built on binary thinking.

Our Core Values

We pride ourselves in being the most unbiased, inclusive, and accessible pregnancy and parenting community in the United States. We consider the following principles in everything we do.

🍼 Being Unbiased

means that we know there is no hierarchy of birth outcomes or parenting choices. That means we do not promote unmedicated births over medicated births or sleep-training over bed-sharing. At Birthsmarter, we believe that families should have the highest quality of education and support to meet them where they are. This means we do not give blanket advice or tell people what to do. We do not make assumptions or lecture on best practices. We share evidence-based resources, community anecdotes, and personal experience while recognizing that one size will never fit all! We want to make sure people feel seen, heard, and supported - NEVER pressured or shamed.

🌈 Being Inclusive

means welcoming all individuals and family structures while recognizing that Black, brown, Queer, fat, disabled, and financially limited individuals and families 1. exist and 2. might have unique needs. As one example of our inclusivity efforts, we default to neutral terms such as “pregnant people” or “partners” instead of leaning on gendered terms like “mama.” We recognize racism and implicit bias in the birth community and work to unpack our own biases and limitations as leaders in the field.

💛 Being Accessible

means meeting people where they are! We offer an alternative pricing policy to make sure every family can access Birthsmarter regardless of their economic status; provide closed captioning in virtual classes; offer classes in multiple formats; and have designed a curriculum with an eye for different learning styles.

Questions?

Check out the FAQs, or read more to see if you even need childbirth ed or what makes Birthsmarter different. Still have questions? Send us a text (801 200 3228) or an email (harmony@birthsmarter.com) and we'll talk you through it.