Legal support for growing families, and the professionals who support them~ From birth plan to estate plan ~
Click your journey below:
I’m pregnant, postpartum, or growing my family.
Start with a free one-page guide to your rights in care and at work.
Know My RightsI support birthing families.
Doulas, midwives, and perinatal pros: get resources for your clients – and yourself.
Get ResourcesI’m in Nevada and want to work with Andi.
Legal services for Nevada families and birth workers, from birth rights to estate planning.
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Meet Andi and learn why the world needs a legal doula.
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Your Birth Rights, In Brief
Understand Them.◆Assert Them.◆Protect Them.
One page. Your rights in care and at work, the federal laws that back them up, and the deadlines nobody warns you about. Written by a birth rights attorney, so you can print it, highlight it, and bring it with you.
women in the U.S. report being mistreated during maternity care: ignored, shouted at, threatened, or pressured. Most of us walk into this system totally blind.
Source: CDC Vital Signs, August 2023.Nobody Hands You A List of Your Rights With Your Due Date.
You get a due date, a prenatal vitamin, and a stack of forms. What you don’t get is anyone telling you that you can say no, that your employer owes you accommodations, or that some of your most important protections come with a deadline.
“This is ridiculous,” I thought, poring over the records from my unplanned C-section. “I’m literally an attorney, and I still don’t understand what I’m entitled to!”
Andrea D. Orwoll, Esq., Founder of Your Legal Doula®Pregnancy, birth, and postpartum don’t cost you a single one of your rights. But rights you don’t know about are rights you can’t use. So I put the ones that matter most on one page, with the laws behind them, in plain English.
Everything You Need, Nothing You Don’t.
In Care & In Labor
Informed consent (your BRAN), your right to refuse and to change your mind, emergency care in active labor, your records, and who gets to be in the room.
EMTALA · HIPAA · ACA § 1557At Work
The Rule of 15/50: a quick way to see which federal protections cover you, plus the accommodations you can ask for and what your employer can’t do.
PWFA · PDA · ADA · FMLA · PUMP ActAfter Birth
Feeding in public, consent for your newborn’s care, your placenta, and the postpartum care your health plan must cover.
All 50 states · ACA preventive careDeadlines to Know
Adding your baby to your health plan, FMLA notice, insurance appeals, records requests, and discrimination charges. Miss the window, lose the option.
30 · 180 · 300 daysIf Your Rights Are Violated
What to document, what to request first, where to file a complaint, and when it’s time to lawyer up.
Boards · HHS OCR · EEOCSay It Out Loud
My C.A.L.M. method and ready-to-use scripts, so you can assert your rights calmly, in the moment.
Cite · Assert · Lean · MaintainThree Steps Between You and a Respected Birth.
Understand
Know which rights apply to you and exactly which laws back them up. Your rights depend on where you live and who you’re dealing with.
Assert
No second-guessing. Say your rights out loud, with a source, and hold your ground when someone tells you it’s “just policy.”
Protect
Know where to turn and what to do if your rights are ignored, from workplace discrimination to obstetric violence.
Rights, Not Courtesies.
You aren’t asking permission for something you’re already entitled to. Here’s the difference on paper.
“Can I refuse continuous monitoring?”
“I understand continuous monitoring is recommended. I’m exercising my right to intermittent monitoring.”
“Is it okay if I pump somewhere else?”
“Federal law gives me the right to pump in a private space that isn’t a bathroom.”
“I was hoping I could maybe sit down more?”
“I’m requesting a reasonable accommodation under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.”
“Okay, if that’s what you think is best…”
“Can you show me the policy that requires that?”
Heard It on the Podcast?
This is the sheet from the five-part series on Let’s Talk Birth Rights. Listen to the episodes wherever you get your podcasts, and keep this page for the moments you need it most.
Hi, I’m Andi.
I’m a Nevada-licensed attorney with nearly a decade of practice in litigation and administrative law. I’m also a single mom by choice, and I planned a home birth that ended in an unplanned C-section and a NICU stay.
I was a few weeks postpartum, back at work, pumping at my desk, and wondering whether the “consent” I’d given to my induction was actually informed. If I couldn’t advocate for myself, as a trained litigator, what American possibly could?
Where were the birth lawyers? I couldn’t find one. So I became one.
Walk In Knowing What the Law Says.
Your rights don’t depend on whether someone remembers to tell you about them. Get the one-page guide and keep it in your hospital bag, your desk drawer, or your phone.
Get Your Birth Rights, In Brief → Free. Instant download.