— Mama. Full Spectrum Doula. Organizer. Advocate.
"I stand on the shoulders of traditional birth attendants, and I stand on the legacy of our Granny Midwives." — Athena Gabriella Guice, PopSugar
Athena’s work now sits at the intersection of birthwork, advocacy, organizing, and an emerging journey toward the law. Guided by years of witnessing how systems often fail families — particularly Black (BIPOC) families, mothers, young parents, and communities navigating perinatal and economic injustice — she is actively building toward the future expansion of Birthers of Civilization into a broader community justice ecosystem that will one day include a legal advocacy arm focused on family-centered legal services, perinatal equity, and community-led systems change.
For Athena, the path toward law is not rooted in prestige, but in protection. It is an extension of the same work she has always done: helping families navigate systems that were not built with them in mind, translating fear into strategy, and turning lived experience into collective power. In the next five years, she aims to pursue formal legal education while continuing to grow Birthers of Civilization into a global multidisciplinary space where birthworkers, advocates, educators, organizers, and eventually legal professionals collaborate to support families holistically.
She believes that sometimes civilizations are rebuilt not only in courtrooms or legislatures, but in living rooms, birth rooms, classrooms, and community spaces where people decide they deserve care, dignity, and a future worth fighting for.
Meet Athena Gabriella Guice —
Graced by God & built for this work
Origin Story: Hija Del Sol Birth Services
It began as a daughter of the sun. It became the birth of civilizations.
In 2016, I founded Hija Del Sol Birth Services — daughter of the sun. Born in Fort Lauderdale's Historic Sistrunk neighborhood, it grew family by family, birth by birth. But the families I served kept showing me what a doula alone couldn't fix — co-parents needing a planning tool that didn't exist, birth workers needing a movement instead of a credential, communities failed at every threshold from the birth room to the statehouse.
Birthers of Civilization wasn't a replacement. It was the graduation. She was the daughter of the sun, learning to hold light in the dark. This is what she built when she realized she wasn't just holding light — she was birthing civilizations.
From the streets to the birth room to the statehouse :
I didn't start here. I survived my way here.
Birthers of Civilization is more than just a full spectrum doula & wedding officiating practice, it closely mirrors my life's architecture — built from everything I've survived, witnessed, and been trusted to hold.
I'm a proud Afro-Floricüa — a Southern Black-Floridian and Puerto Rican mama of two. Born in Tampa, Flawda and raised in Fort Lauderdale (Broward County), on Seminole and Miccosukee lands. My service to Jesus Christ, my neurodivergence, & my Afro-Boricua roots shape how I show up for every family I serve. I didn't start here. I survived my way here... through the Grace of God.
Ten years ago, I founded my doula practice after navigating homelessness as a 20-year-old single mama struggling through a postpartum mood disorder — without a village, without a map... with faith the size of a mustard seed. That experience became the blueprint.
It's why every service I offer is trauma-informed. It's why I practice decolonizing birthwork — returning birth knowledge and power to the communities the medical system has surveilled and dismissed. And it's why I built a practice that refuses to separate birth from the conditions surrounding it.