What’s A Doula? 

 

Continuous professional support during pregnancy and labor can go a long way toward easing the stress of labor and reassuring to the mother and birth partner that labor is progressing normally.   Towards this end, the inclusion of doulas as part of your health care team is beneficial to advancing the hospital’s baby-friendly initiatives.

 

A birth doula is a woman trained and experienced in childbirth who provides continuous physical, emotional and informational support to a woman and her partner during labor, birth and the immediate postpartum period.   The concept of a doula comes from the tradition of women being surrounded and cared for by other women during childbirth — “mothering the mother”.

 

The doula provides continuity of care, attending to all aspects of the laboring environment, while keeping an understanding of the core knowledge of the patient’s wants and needs.   As such, the doula is an important and valuable member of your health care team.

 

The doula serves as a resource for both the laboring woman and birth partner (when available), helping the birth partner participate more fully in the process. The doula is solely there to serve the laboring Mom.  This may look different woman to woman, but the supportive voice of the doula in the emotional journey of labor is pivotal to the laboring Mom obtaining a successful birth and healthy baby.  They are there to comfort and support the mother and to enhance communication between the mother and medical professionals.                                                                                                              

Doulas do not replace midwives, nurses or other medical staff.  They do not perform clinical or medical tasks such as taking blood pressure or temperature, monitoring fetal heart rate, doing vaginal examinations or provide postpartum clinical care.

 

The partnership between doulas and your medical team becomes crucial to the sustainability of your birthing environment for the laboring Mom both emotionally and environmentally.