Meet Sheila Cameron

• Age: 40

• How long in Tracy: 30 years

• Birthplace: Fremont

• Education: East Union High School in Manteca

• Occupation: Certified doula, teacher’s aide at Jacobson Elementary School

• Family: Husband, Robert; children, Anita, 19, and Dylan, 13

Sheila Cameron smiles as she flips through her baby book, an oversized volume filled scrapbook-style with names, photos and dates.

There’s Lyricc, Gabi, Josephine, Aaren and more than a dozen others, but they aren’t her own kids. These are children who Cameron, a Tracy resident, helped bring into the world as a doula, a certified assistant who helps mothers through maternity, labor and the first year of their babies’ lives.

Some of the women Cameron, 40, has helped have later accepted her as part of their families, sometimes introducing her as “Auntie Sheila” to their kids.

“I couldn’t have done it without her,” Tracy mother Sabrina Hunter said. “She’s just an incredibly inspirational, supportive person — and she knows her stuff.”

Hunter had a high-risk pregnancy and said Cameron helped her safely deliver Sydney, who is now 13 months old. Hunter likes to joke that Sydney saw Cameron before she saw her mother.

She said she found Cameron through the Doulas of North America website and, after meeting her, felt a bond.

Many other women who have hired Cameron as a doula say they’ve felt the same way.

“That’s a pretty intimate thing to share with somebody, and I felt very comfortable and at ease with her,” said Emily Enescu of Stockton, mother of 16-month-old Gabi. “She helped me stick to my birth plan by providing me physical and emotional support. She gave me encouragement and really helped me bring the little one into the world with the least interventions.”

Cameron, who is also a teacher’s aide at Jacobson Elementary, said she became interested in doulas after she helped her sister give birth 15 years ago. She enjoyed the process and soon looked into ways to make it a more regular gig.

The mother of two found the term “doula” while searching online and did some more digging. She took classes through Kaiser Permanente in Sacramento to become certified, and she said she has helped 21 mothers in the past three years.

“She’s awesome,” said Stockton mother Nicole Guindon, who hired Cameron to help deliver Lyricc, now 22 months. “My sister wanted to have a doula and wasn’t able to find one in time, so she encouraged me to look into it. She’s definitely something that all pregnant women should look into.”

Cameron said it’s a job she loves, even if she has to be on call 24 hours a day. While some women hire her midway through their pregnancies, she said she’s had a couple of cases where she’s barely met the mother-to-be before helping her through a non-medicated labor.

“It’s very rewarding to be with the moms,” Cameron said. “You’re totally exhausted, but yet you’re driving home with a big smile on your face.”

n In the Spotlight is a weekly profile in Our Town. To nominate someone or to comment on this story, contact Our Town Editor Justin Lafferty at 830-4221.