What is a Doula?

I finished my training seminar through DONA yesterday!  I am super excited and ready to tell everyone I meet about doulas.  The class taught me so many useful strategies for labor support, comfort measures, and progressing labor.  I get so enthusiastic when I start talking about doulas, then I get the inevitable question....  "What is a doula?"

The short answer is that a birth doula is a trained labor assistant who does whatever the laboring mother or her family needs during the birth of their baby.  She is there to support the mom and empower her choices.  A postpartum doula is a woman who helps the new family make the transition to parenthood or eases the entry of the next baby into the family.  Doulas are not medical assistants or midwifes.


Often, people will assume that they don't need a doula because their partner will be at the birth or because they have family around who can help after the baby is born. I'm thinking, perhaps, that this is because doulas are still a relatively new thing and people don't see how a doula could help them.

When I'm with a family at their birth, there is a lot that I do. I provide information, about the birth process, about the different birth options, about comfort measures, and what has helped other moms. I remind them that they are a consumer, who is paying for a service from the hospital, midwife or doctor. In hoing that, I hope to empower them to make informed choices and feel that the are in control. Physically, I'm there to hold their hands, rub backs and feet, tell them that they can do this and that they will make it through. I can facilitate communication between the laboring woman, her partner, and her clinical care providers.



Most importantly, I'm there continuously. From the time that they call me to tell me "it's time," I stay with them. While your doctor, midwife, or nurse might have other moms in labor or office hours to attend to, your doula just has you.

Evidence to support the use of doulas or other trained labor support professionals:
http://childbirthconnection.org/article.asp?ck=10174
 
What is a doula info from DONA:
 
http://www.dona.org/mothers/index.php