Penny Simkin, a Seattle doula who co-founded Doulas of North America and educated thousands about childbirth, died Thursday at 85 from pancreatic cancer.
A physical therapist and childbirth educator, Simkin founded DONA with four other perinatal-child health experts in 1992. Now DONA International, it was the first organization in the world to train and certify doulas and is now the largest. Simkin authored several books for caregivers, mothers, partners and siblings-to-be.
Simkin, who lived on Capitol Hill with her husband Peter for nearly six decades, died in her daughter Linny Simkin’s home — across the hall from the room where she had caught her granddaughter during a home birth, exactly 25 years and one day prior. By Penny Simkin’s side Thursday were her three daughters, son-in-law and a death doula.
DONA International’s early work helped lend credibility to the concept of a doula — birth doulas offer childbirth assistance that does not include medical care, like physical and emotional support before, during and after birth.
Originally from Yarmouth, Maine, Simkin met her husband at Swarthmore College while pursuing her Bachelor of Arts in English literature, and the two married after her sophomore year. She later got a certificate in physical therapy from the University of Pennsylvania before shadowing physical therapists in England who applied the field to childbirth. The experience stuck with her, Linny Simkin said.
When Peter Simkin was stationed at Fort Lawton, they fell in love with the Pacific Northwest, Linny Simkin said. The family moved to Seattle for good in 1966.
Once her children were in elementary school, Penny Simkin began looking for work and saw an ad to teach childbirth education classes. “She went for it and was a natural,” Linny Simkin said.
“She recognized that women needed more support in labor,” Linny Simkin said. “They needed the support of a compassionate person who was there to represent their physical comfort and their emotional needs, and those were needs that were not being met by the doctors and the nurses in the labor and delivery room.”
With others in the field — Annie Kennedy, Dr. John H. Kennell, Dr. Marshall Klaus and Phyllis Klaus — Penny founded DONA. They popularized the term “doula” and lobbied dictionaries to adopt it in the early 2000s.
Penny Simkin traveled the country training doulas for DONA, and became the face of the organization, said DONA International President Robin Elise Weiss.
As an educator, Simkin realized she couldn’t find books for her students that said what she wanted them to say, so she started writing them herself. Over her career, she authored and co-authored dozens of books, pamphlets and articles, including “The Birth Partner,” originally published in 1989. That book became fundamental to the birthing care field, Weiss said.
By Simkin’s own estimates, she prepared over 15,000 mothers, partners and siblings for childbirth.
Weiss recalled being one of the first doulas Simkin trained in 1994: “Penny was Doula No. 1, and I am Doula No. 20.”
“Penny was always really great at centering the family, centering the person who was birthing,” Weiss said.
Sharon Muza, a Seattle doula and trainer, met Simkin in 2004 when she began training as a doula, and Simkin later educated her as a doula trainer. But “she was there before I knew her personally,” Muza said, recalling reading her book, “Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Newborn: The Complete Guide,” during her pregnancy in 1997. The book’s pragmatic, evidence-based information was empowering and educational, Muza said.
“Penny never said things like ‘No, no childbirth isn’t painful,’” Muza said. “She acknowledged there was discomfort and pain … but the pain is OK. It’s the pain of our bodies working.”
Muza remembered Simkin made T-shirts for DONA International members with the question “How will they remember this?” on the back. She told Muza, “I put it on the back of the T-shirt so when doulas are leaning over their clients, like in bed, people walk into the room and that’s what they’ll see.”
Simkin made another indelible impact on childbirth, Muza said, noting that she invented the squatting bar, which is now commonplace on delivery beds to support a squat, expanding the pelvis and taking advantage of gravity to help the baby move down.
Having a doula during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum recovery has long been associated with improved outcomes for mothers’ and their babies’ physical, mental and emotional health.
Black and American Indian and Alaska Native people are more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white people, and pregnancy-related deaths are on the rise across the U.S. The emotional, physical and educational support doulas and midwives provide through pregnancy is critical.
Simkin also founded the organization PATTCh, Prevention and Treatment of Traumatic Childbirth, and wrote about how to care for mothers during birth who were survivors of sexual abuse.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she still hosted teaching webinars for doulas despite her lack of technological savvy. Even after her cancer diagnosis, Simkin worked with another author to update the next edition of “The Birth Partner,” coming out in the fall.
Linny Simkin said her mother, a “hands-on mom” to a son and three daughters, attended the births of eight of her grandchildren. “She was very much the center of our family.”
Linny Simkin, who attended the DONA International conference with her mom last year, said her mother was always “bemused” by the influence she had.
“To see what DONA has become and what the doula profession has become … It’s just amazing to see the impact that my humble mom was able to have,” Linny said.
Penny Simkin was preceded in death by her husband of over 60 years, Peter, and is survived by her four children, including Andrew Simkin, of Poplar Ridge, New York; and Linny Simkin; Mary Maass; and Elizabeth Simkin, all of Seattle; nine grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
“Penny was somebody who championed a person when maybe they didn’t believe in themselves, in the most humble of ways,” Muza said. “The more doulas we train, the more doulas we have. It’s a real legacy that she has left, touching so many people.”