What is a doula?
What is a doula? I’ve often run into people who think a doula is synonymous with a midwife. While both are definitely birth workers, supporting mothers and physiological and autonomous birth, their scopes of practice are very different.
A doula is “a trained professional who provides continuous physical, emotional and informational support to their client before, during and shortly after childbirth to help them achieve the healthiest, most satisfying experience possible.” -DONA International
We nurture, support, love, and create connection where intimacy, connection, trust, and vulnerability can exist.
In that definition, the absence of medical support is noted. Doulas do not provide medical support or advice. That is completely out of our scope. We are there to educate, provide physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual support, and protect your birth space.
Doulas provide continuous labor support for the mother and partner. Doulas are for the dads (or other partners) as well. In many cases, I make sure they are getting enough to eat and drink, getting questions answered, and helping them feel supported and as involved as they want. A doula and partner should work as a team, where the doula fills in where the partner is not able to. A doula should not take the place of the partner.
Physical support is often comfort measures like counter pressure, physical touch, massage, and even just the physical presence of a doula. Most doulas are trained in Spinning babies and other techniques to help baby and mom work together to make space for baby in the pelvis, aiding in labor. We offer help with position changes and ideas to ease discomfort and pain from contractions. Eating and drinking is high on this list; you need sustenance to continue to labor and have the energy to work with your baby and body. We help encourage you to empty your bladder as well, giving baby the necessary room to continue their descent through the pelvis and birth canal.
Emotional support can look like words of affirmation, reassurance, praise, mindfulness, adaptability and resilience, supporting your decisions and intuition, advocacy, helping with fear release and recognizing trauma responses, etc. We are there to help you embody and step into the power you already possess. We are there to protect the birth space and create an environment and experience that is positive. Doulas help debrief and process the labor and birth as well, giving the parents a place to feel safe, heard, and seen.
There are doulas who focus on supporting those of different faiths and adding the elements from those religions into their support.
Evidence Based Birth has an article about the evidence of having a doula at your birth. Overall, you’re more likely to have a positive birth experience, an increased likelihood of a spontaneous vaginal birth, and a shorter labor. Having a doula decreases the risk of c-sections, use of pain medication, and even low APGAR scores for baby.
Doulas are a fantastic to almost any birth team. We support all births: hospital, home, birth center and medicated, unmedicated, cesarean. Every outcome, every parent, every birth deserves to be supported and surrounded by love.
