Every Expecting Woman Deserves a Doula
Doula is a hot topic in the birth world. Has anyone asked you if you have or had a doula? And now you’re wondering “what is a doula, what do they do?” Well, you are in the right place. In this article, we’re going to cover the basics. Although there are a range of different kinds of doulas, such as fertility, birth, postpartum, bereavement, and full spectrum, we will mainly be discussing birth doula support. In other words, birth companion or labor support person. They are an excellent addition to your birth team and help you to have a satisfying birth experience. You do not need a doula but you deserve to have one!
What is a doula?
A doula is a professional who is trained to provide advice, information, emotional support, and physical comfort to a mother and her partner before, during, and just after childbirth. Additionally, they provide continuous support during labor and birth. The term “doula” comes from ancient Greek and means “a women who serves.”
What is a doula’s role?
The goal of a doula is to ensure that women have a memorable, empowering, and satisfying birth experience. To do that, they will support, reassure, and assist you with..
- physical comfort: advice and assistance on comfort measures
- emotional support and reassurance
- educational guidance: using evidence based knowledge to help you make informed decisions
- advocacy: empowering you to know and communicate your needs for your desired birth
- nonclinical advice
- offer partner support: decrease the pressure on your partner and guide them
Generally, you will have at least one if not more prenatal appointments with your doula. At this point, you will get to know each other better and build a connection, discuss your birth plan, priorities, and fears, and work together to prepare you for your upcoming birth and postpartum period. In most cases, they will provide continuous labor and birth support, help with initiating breastfeeding, and offer support post partum.
Doula vs. Midwife
Often people confuse the roles of midwives and doulas, as they do have some overlapping responsibilities, but there is a crucial distinction, midwives provide medical care. The main obligation for a midwife is to provide for the physical health of mother and baby. Additionally, midwives likely will not be with you throughout your entire labor and birth process. Whereas doulas do not perform medical tasks and are with you every step of the way. Their main priority is to help the laboring person feel comfortable and relaxed, more along the lines of a birth coach, by offering pain management techniques, strategic laboring positions, massage, aromatherapy, breathing techniques, and more.
Benefits of adding a doula to your birth team
One perk of having a doula is that they provide you with continuous support; unlike the medical staff, who are in and out of the room and changing shifts every 8-12 hours. Additionally, you’ll have built a relationship in your prenatal appointments so you’ll feel more comfortable around them. More importantly, it is proven that adding a doula to your birth team improves birth outcomes and increases birth experience satisfaction. Check out Continuous Support for Women During Childbirth: 2017 Cochrane Review Key Takeaways to see the studies details and results and the number of benefits doula support offers. The conclusion, “continuous labor support appears to offer impressive benefits and no harms to women and newborns, especially when provided by someone in a doula role.”
Birth together
Birth is not something you are meant to do alone. Before most birth moved to the hospital settings, laboring women had significant support from all the women around them. Today doula’s have taken over that role. Pregnancy, labor, and birth are a beautiful transformation into motherhood and your journey matters. Let a doula take some of the weight off your shoulders, support, and empower you during one of the most important times in your life.
Check out this article “I’m an Ob-Gyn. Here’s Why I Had a Doula Help With My Delivery,” by Dr. Denise De Los Santos.
One thought on “Every Expecting Woman Deserves a Doula”
Comments are closed.