What Is A Doula?

Well friends!

I'm so glad you asked.

To summarize; a doula is a birth professional who offers support to a woman (and her birth partner/family) during her labour, birth and immediately post-partum. Doulas also help offer education and resources such as normal physiological birth, nutritional information, comfort measures, interventions, post-partum support and care for mother and baby, and so much more.

Things doulas do not do however are clinical procedures, such as monitoring procedures on a woman and offering care during labour/birth/post-partum like blood pressure readings, invasive procedures such as vaginal checks, assisting the mother to deliver a baby, prescribing or administering medication, etc.
Doulas are NOT traditional birth assistants/montrices or midwives. Strictly support.

Here's the cool part about Doulas.

Doulas do not judge you for your birth choices. You do not have to justify your choices to your doula.

You want a home waterbirth? Awesome.
You want a hospital birth with an epidural? Great.
You want a scheduled C-section? Perfect.

In fact, we will go over the risks and benefits with you so you choose what you feel is best and feel empowered in your choices. We will never make you feel bad for your change in choices either.

You wanted a homebirth with midwives but ended up transferring to the hospital to get an epidural?
Ok! You don't have to apologize to us like you failed us because you were paying us money to help you achieve that goal. Absolutely not.

If anything, we Doulas have a saying, a mantra that we repeat over and over to ourselves,
"It's not your birth".
By this we mean while there may be preferences that WE have for OUR own births and experiences; Simply put, this isn't our birth and therefore we don't tell you how it's done.
We simply coach you in the way YOU need as YOUR preference is of utmost importance.

We also help advocate.

While we cannot do this on your behalf due to legalities, we are often experienced with hospital lingo and happenings, and can catch certain patterns hospital staff may be doing in regards to procedures.

For example: a doctor may be getting ready to do an episiotomy procedure. Since we are not able to tell the doctor no on your behalf as we had discussed your preferences in prior meetings, we may be able to say something like "the doctor would like to perform an episiotomy, is that something you would like to consent to?"
From there you or your partner can make a clear cut yes or no decision whether or not you want a procedure performed.

We also do other things like... Whatever you want really!

You want a massage, we got you.
You want a glass of water, we got you.
You need someone to hold the cloth on your head, we got you.
You want your partner to do all of that and you be there for him or her? We got you.
You need someone to take over for your partner while they use the washroom or get some rest? We got you.

We work with you and get to know you and your birth partner(s) so that we can do whatever we can within our scope and power to support you and your partner to have the most positive birth experience possible.

So what are you waiting for?
Are you or someone you know is pregnant?
Check out adding a Doula to your birth team!