What is a doula series: the basics.

So, you’re looking for a doula? Or perhaps you’ve just recently heard this odd term and want to learn more.

You’re in luck, because this is the start of my “What is a doula” series where I will shed some light on what a doula is, does, how they benefit you, as well as other fun tips and tricks.

Founded in tradition of women coming together to support the birthing person through a powerful rite of passage.

First off, “doula” was coined in the 1960s derived from the Greek word meaning “women who serve.” However, women have been serving each other in birth long before the 1960s, this was simply when women began pushing for more birth support. Particularly in areas where western medicine was prevalent, such as the United States.

Women wanted birth to be less frightening, isolating, and overwhelming. Considering as a species, women typically were supported by a local midwife and women of their community usually a mix of family and friends. For countries driven by western medicine, this community based support was pushed further and further away.

From the 60s to today, we are generally pretty isolated from community and even family. It is common for a couple to marry and move across the state, country, or even overseas from their parents and grandparents. This distance plus needing to make new friends in your new home often leaves couples that are expecting their first or even fifth baby feeling alone and unsupported.

When family and friends are too far away or too swamped with their own obligations (whether jobs or families of their own), a doula is available to fill in this gap.

Living closely with multigenerational families is not always feasible, so that essential aspect of community support needs to come from somewhere to ease the transition of pregnancy to birth to parenthood.

A doula provides that stability of availability, as well as education in the birthing process, newborn care, and breastfeeding. Often sharing local resources or information so the parents, who may have never been around newborns before, have a chance to become educated on the basics so they feel more confident in becoming parents.

As well as providing education on your choices for your birth and in parenting so you can make your own informed decisions. Much like how I felt in regards to hormonal birth control by not being educated in the potential for health risks or prolonged infertility later in life, a similar tendency for not providing necessary information and education occurs in our maternal health care system.

You don’t know what you don’t know, so how can you be expected to make informed choices on your health care? As consumers of our health care, which is how our medical system is set up, you have the right to know your options, to get second or fifth opinions on the right course of action. Just because one doctor or hospital says you cannot try for a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) does not mean it isn’t a safe and feasible option for you. It may mean you need to look into another care provider before accepting a scheduled cesarean.

It is important for me to emphasize that as a doula, I do not have an agenda for what your birth should or should not look like beyond being your choice.

Whether you want a drug-free home birth to a planned cesarean, I am simply here to provide you with options, resources, and support so you feel confident in your informed decisions.

Whatever your ideal birth looks like, I want to be there with you to help make that a reality.

Sometimes twists and turns and unexpected hiccups happen. Part of my job is to help prepare you for those potential variations from your ideal vision of birth. Even if you fully intended and desired to have a drug-free birth, you may find yourself thirty hours in and exhausted. You may change your mind and decide medication to allow you to rest before it is time to push is the best option for you now that you have been laboring.

And that is okay.

I will help you try everything we can prior to that point, and support you if you change your mind. You know what is best for you and your baby and what your limits are. I can also reassure you that you can absolutely change your mind, but let’s have the nurse or midwife check you first.

Sometimes all you need in that moment when you feel like you cannot do this anymore, is to be told that it’s almost time to push. Because many times when a mamma reaches that wall where they just cannot go on, it’s because their baby is about to be born.

And other times, it is simply a long labor and you could absolutely use a rest for a couple of hours. Then when it is time to try getting up and encouraging that baby to move down and out you feel more capable and ready.

Every birth is different for every mamma, and I want to hold space for that uniqueness.

Your birth matters, and so does your memory of it. I would like to honor that core aspect of birth with you. No matter what twists or turns may happen, I want you to feel at the end of the day and twenty years from now satisfaction with yourself and your birth experience. To leave you with a feeling of empowerment and pride that you did this awesome thing and feel like you are capable of anything.

That’s what I want for you.

Next time, I will go more in depth into exactly what a doula does to help you have that feeling of “I am capable of anything.”

Until then, I wish you all the best and happy birthing!

JB