Story & Lesson Highlights with Rebecca Kaasa Belenky

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Rebecca Kaasa Belenky. Check out our conversation below.

Good morning Rebecca, it’s such a great way to kick off the day – I think our readers will love hearing your stories, experiences and about how you think about life and work. Let’s jump right in? What is something outside of work that is bringing you joy lately?
I’m finding a lot of joy right now in reconnecting with my creativity and prioritizing analog hobbies. You are asking me this right at the start of 2026, so I’ve been reflecting a lot on what I hope for this year. I find myself craving more balance between productivity at work and time to feed my creative side. I’m someone who can easily push myself to stay productive and do A LOT, but when I have time to daydream, I end up just planning or to-do-listing myself all day long. It is so boring, and I don’t think life is supposed to be like that.

So, I’m making time for creativity every day. Last week, I crocheted a few washcloths, and this week, I am sketching and painting. Even when I say that “I am painting,” it feels like I am trying to be fancy. But I want to be clear: it is not very pretty or skilled, and I am just copying Instagram artists. I am just enjoying the simple act of sitting down and playing with colors and lines, letting go of the need to be “good” at it, because I am really not, and that’s ok! An unexpected bonus has been how happily my kids join in when I pull out art supplies—so I am nagging them less about getting off of screens. It feels a lot more peaceful when we all do more to feed our creative selves.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Rebecca Kaasa Belenky, a certified holistic birth and postpartum doula, lactation educator, and childbirth educator based in Los Angeles. I’ve been supporting families through pregnancy, birth, and postpartum since 2014, and I’m the founder of Los Angeles Birth.

My doula work centers on offering trauma-informed, evidence-based care that supports families emotionally, physically, and spiritually during one of the most transformative times of their lives.

In addition to working one-on-one with clients, I’m passionate about education and connecting families with helpful resources. In 2025, I launched the Los Angeles Birth blog as a space to share practical guidance, nuanced perspectives, and the collective wisdom of experienced birth workers across Pasadena and Los Angeles. Upcoming features include interviews with Los Angeles midwives, conversations on informed choice and advocacy, and resources on where and how families can give birth in LA in ways that align with their values and desires.

Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. Who taught you the most about work?
Britta Bushnell has taught me the most about my work. I met Britta at the very beginning of my doula career, when I assisted her in her childbirth education classes in South Pasadena in 2014. I was just trying to figure out what it meant to be a “good” doula. Her approach was really different than my doula trainings had been up to that point. She did not act like “the expert” in the room, telling the students to do this or so that for a certain kind of birth. She let their curiosity lead the class as she planted seeds that the expecting parents could pick up and grow if they wanted. It focused on expanding parents’ expectations of what it could look like and on letting go of rigid, dogmatic, black-or-white expectations.

I continued learning and growing my doula practice and was lucky enough to complete an apprenticeship with Britta Bushnell in 2020 and again in 2024. This long-term mentorship deeply shaped both my professional path and my personal understanding of effective birth support. Through her teaching and mentorship, I learned that birth is about so much more than bringing a baby into the world—it is a profoundly emotional, personal, and transformative experience for everyone involved. She taught me to trust that the client is the expert in their own life. When we can hand over decision-making to our clients, we can truly support them without a personal agenda. Britta has been instrumental in my growth as a doula and as a person, and I remain deeply grateful to be in her orbit and to carry her influence into the work I do with families.

What did suffering teach you that success never could?
This is taking the question in a little different direction, but I went through breast cancer treatment a few years ago, and it was a lot of suffering. It was the worst. Chemo, surgery, radiation, more chemo, and now maintenance drugs. I lost the version of myself that was healthy. I’ve had to put myself back together and grow into a new version of myself.

But now I am at the point where I am glad I went through it. When I was diagnosed, I thought I was a person living a healthy life. I nursed my kids for years (breastfeeding is shown to reduce chances of breast cancer), and I was NOT supposed to be the person who got breast cancer. But I did. The experience taught me that you can do all the “right” things and still go through some Sh!+. Life is just so weird, and it doesn’t always make sense. Having the opportunity to learn that deeply from my own life challenges allows me to be a better human with more understanding and empathy, and sit with the discomfort of how complicated life is, and life’s experiences are not always tied up with a cute bow on it. Having that deep appreciation allows me to be a better doula and human for the people in my life.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Whose ideas do you rely on most that aren’t your own?
There are a few resources and birth workers whose ideas continually challenge me and help me grow as a practitioner. Evidence-Based Birth is an invaluable resource that I return to often. There are several nuanced, complex articles on the site that I reread every few months, as the clients I am supporting have different birth circumstances to consider. Rachel Reed also creates content that challenges standard maternity practices and delves into the nitty-gritty of pregnancy and birth research.

I also love the work of doula and educator Flor Cruz, known online as @badassmotherbirther. She shares empowering real birth videos and creates content that challenges the status quo in maternity care and promotes self-advocacy. These voices help remind me that staying curious and questioning is essential to offering meaningful doula support to families. They also spark a fire in me, so I keep working from a place of progress and not complacency.

Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What are you doing today that won’t pay off for 7–10 years?
Raising kids?! I often joke that raising kids is a very long experiment, and it’s still too early to say how it is going to turn out! I suppose one of the biggest long-term investments we’re making is choosing to homeschool our children, which can feel like a leap of faith. Doing things that are different from the norm can feel scary and also freeing at the same time. We’ve prioritized spending time together as a family, doing life together, and learning together. I feel lucky that our lives can be set up so that this less conventional choice is possible.

My hope is that as our children grow into adults, they’ll carry a sense of closeness with us, and that our relationship remains something they value and continue to nurture over time.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.losangelesbirth.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/belenkyrebecca
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-kaasa-belenky-8480b33a0/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068968306864
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/los-angeles-birth-south-pasadena
• Other: https://linktr.ee/losangelesbirth
  https://www.losangelesbirth.com/blog

Image Credits
Walter Belenky