What is a birth doula?
A birth doula is a trained professional and labor support person that provides continuous emotional, mental, and physical support during pregnancy, childbirth, and the immediate postpartum period. They will be your coach, advocate, and resource. In addition, doula’s provide informational support so that you can make the most informed decisions regarding your care. The job of a doula is not to make decisions for you! It is to provide you with the information so that you can make the best decisions for yourself.
what does this look like?
During pregnancy, you will receive text/phone support from your doula. They will answer questions, provide resources and emotional/ informational support as your body is continuously changing to grow your baby. Typically, you will meet with your doula around 36 weeks for a prenatal visit to develop a birth plan, learn pain management techniques, positioning, and discuss an overview of childbirth and breastfeeding. Then, when you are in labor your doula will come to your birth to provide you with continuous support in whatever way that you may need. This may look like a lot of physical support, providing comfort measures or position suggestions to help the progression of labor. Or, it may look more like holding space and helping families feel emotionally supported. It could also be supporting the partner to be as involved as they’d like with the birth. Maybe it’s a little bit of all of those. Every birth is different, and your doula will support you no matter how or where you plan to have your baby. After your baby is born your doula will help with the establishment of breastfeeding if you are choosing to breastfeed. Then, will see you again within 2 weeks of your birth for a postpartum visit.
What are the benefits of having a birth doula?
There are many benefits of having a doula, including a significantly reduced chance of interventions during labor. Statistically, with a doula present at the birth:
C-sections reduced by 50%
Pain relief requests reduced by 30%
Epidural requests reduced by 60%
Forceps/Vacuum-assisted births reduced by 40%
Over-all time spent in labor reduced by 25%