Doula

Doula ~ isn’t that a neat sounding word? When I first read it, I thought, “Sounds like a musical instrument!” It wasn’t a part of my vocabulary until I met someone who was a Doula. Yes, it’s a job title and I thought the job description was so interesting that I’d blog about it.


“Doula” originates from the Greek meaning of “a woman who serves.” The job description is ~ “non-medical support” ~ Doulas “mother the mother.”

Doulas are there for prenatal consultations, for the labor, close to the onset of active labor and stay with the laboring mother until a couple of hours after the baby is born. They even come back for a post visit. Doulas are there to help mothers to make informed choices. I can honestly say that I learned a lot from my friend, things I might not ever have taken into consideration had I not met her.

(Ok, going to say this before it’s asked, no, I’m not pregnant and no, I’ve never had a child.)


“Studies show that support from a Doula has benefits, including shorter labor, less desire for pain medication, lower rate of Caesarian delivery and more ease in initiation of breast feeding. As well, the fathers reported that they were more relaxed with a Doula present, because they felt reassured and therefore freer to support their mates.”

Doulas help in various aspects, such as helping to prepare for birth. Once the meeting is set, the Doula gets a birth plan on paper together. She learns what the expectations are of the mother. Such as ~ how does the mother handle pain, foods that she likes to eat, does she want a natural birth or medicated, is she a vomiter, what about music, does she have a birth ball, how much does the father want to play a role in the delivery.

Doulas are there to emotionally support the mother and to help the father as well. If the Doula is calm, it follows that the father will be calm too. As my friend explained, people don’t know what to expect. We watch too much TLC and some of it is down right scary.


Without a Doula present, most likely, a couple will rush to the hospital much too early, where all of the interventions start to be pushed because doctors love to control everything and want to see things move fast, which goes against nature.


My friend gave me a great example ~ think of it this way – if you aren’t prepared for the birth and give yourself the needed time, it’s like going to the doctor and he gives you an aspirin for a headache you think you will get 10 hours later. And then the doctor gives you another aspirin, just to make sure you don’t get that headache and then before you know it, you have an ulcer or other side effects because you took something you didn’t need. So now you need something to help with the stomach pain, but that gives you a fever.. and so on.


It makes a lot of sense. Especially if both parties are new parents and don’t know what to expect.

Take pitocin for instance…. It induces labor. I hear a lot of women saying they would like the labor induced, that they think the labor pains last too long, etc. But I wonder if those same women know that Pitocin increases the risk of fetal distress and will make the women more likely to request pain medication like an epidural, there can be uterine rupture, etc.

One article I read, the lady addressed pitocin this way, “They (mothers) don’t understand that when you induce a woman, her body isn’t ready to give birth – if it was, it would be in labor! – and so you are, in effect, trying/hoping to blast a square peg through a round hole.”

Another lady wrote: "I hated pitocin! My contractions were HORRIBLE!!! I had no time between them and they hurt sooooooooo bad. My contractions went on and on for over 12 hours and they measured higher than normal contractions and never did one thing to change my cervix. I ended up with a c-section."

There are many stories like that out there and I wonder…. If they had a Doula through the experience, how different would the birth memories be. Just knowing someone is there for you, when you are in pain, the most likely to succumb to a hospital’s pressure versus what you can handle naturally, if you had the assistance from someone who has a clear mind and is educated about various options ~ what a relief that would be!


For an interesting link that has a lot of information, click here. It’s an article by Henci Goer called, “The Assault on Normal Birth: The OB Disinformation Campaign.” The article starts off questioning the rising Cesarean rates and why this isn’t being questioned. Why isn’t the other side of the story ~ having natural birth ~ being told. The article gives a breakdown of history and I recommend taking a moment to check it out.

Henci Goer concludes the article with this:

“To return to the questions that opened this article, our side of the story isn’t being told because ACOG’s campaign has worked like a charm. As any ad agency exec – or snake oil salesman – can tell you, you can convince the public of anything if you say it loud enough, long enough and often enough. And if your message sound scientific or comes from someone people trust – or better yet, both – you’re home free.”

Isn’t that the truth? I’ve often said, “The person who complains the most and to the right people, which typically will be a supervisor, etc, will get what they want.” The media has the avenue and the ability and the attitude.


One Doula said: “They (hospitals) are the biggest pushers and liars. But in the end, if the parents aren’t willing to advocate for themselves or choose a practitioner that believes in practicing medicine with the same vision as the parents, basically they are going to get a birth with things that didn’t have to happen and often, but not always, the parents are not happy wit and disappointed in, because it didn’t match what they wanted. I’m personally sick and tired of “as long as mom and baby are fine” Seriously, what does that mean? Does that mean if the doctors push an unnecessary c section, the mom bleeds out but they are able to fix it on time and the woman never knows how close she came to a hysterectomy because of that, then it’s ok?”


I asked my friend why she went into the field of being a Doula. Like most of us, she has dealt with doctors who didn’t inform patients, who didn’t want to take the time to find out what is wrong and what the options are. She wanted to be the voice of information to the mothers, to be a mother’s advocate.


I asked if she would share one of her happiest moments as a Doula and she said:

"I worked with a VBAC client (vaginal birth after c-section) during my certification process. She went with the same Midwife as before but had ended up with a section anyway, but to me, at least we all knew that she really needed that section because home birth midwifes really practice the safest way to birth and go with evidence and let you and your body have it's time. She had a very long labor. Even stopping at some point and then starting almost a day later. We started to labor at home and I worked with her for hours in the pool and other positions. Eventually the pain was too much and she transferred to the hospital. The midwife had another patient who refused to labor at home for some reason and she ended up in the room next to us. She was having a terrible time with that mother, and I was with my client alone for a long time. My client had epidural and it allowed her to finally sleep. Dad, Doula and mom slept. And then I helped her through some rough patches where the epidural was wearing off but the midwife wasn't around to give the ok for more. I was able to redirect her thoughts until they came to give more epidural to her and she did have her VBAC. I reminded her to touch the baby’s head as it was crowning. I'll never forget the joy on her face. NEVER.”

My friend has opened my eyes to a lot of information and should I ever get pregnant, I’d want to consider a Doula and natural childbirth.

Some of my friends who have had children told me, “I wanted the pain killers. I didn’t want to feel any pain.” It’s called labor for a reason. It’s going to hurt at times. As my friend said, “If you learn early on that you can do this, your body is completely capable and you let others help you and guide you and redirect you then you can do this naturally. The women who have had natural births were up and about quickly and had a lot of energy once done. You see, the endorphins give you all that even after the baby and placenta are birthed. The ones with the epidural have a harder time pushing, are not allowed out of the bed so quickly, must be on the monitor more often or continuously, be catheterized and often end up on pitocin which induces labor and is very painful and that can lead to a lot of problems with the baby’s heart rate or the mother as well and often leads to a c-section.”

It seems to me that the Doula is there to help the mother labor at home as long as they can together, to get her pretty far along in the labor. My friend had concerns about doctors who demand things to “move on a schedule” and treat “labor as a sickness.” She doesn’t believe that labor is something that should be manipulated with medicine. Though, with the growing number of c-sections, one has to wonder about the information that’s available to mothers.

In an article ~ a lady talks about how the newspaper bashes Doulas. She didn't reference or link the article, so I don't know what it said exactly. But she wrote on her blog: "What amazes me is that women have to be told to hire a Doula with the "same amount of diligence as they would when seeking a pediatrician." "

This makes me wonder ~ do women put enough diligence into seeking a pediatrician as well?

The same lady writes, "When are mothers going to wake up and see birth as powerful? There are plenty of fabulous Doulas out there who rock. I've met them, I know many of them, and I believe Doula care is a critical service to childbearing women. But the one thing women today have to understand about a Doula is that a Doula-assisted birth is about assisting the woman to have the most powerful birth she can possibly have. I sometimes think women today don't want this power.”

I asked my friend, if there’s one thing that you’d like for someone to take away from my blog about Doulas and my post, what would it be… She responded:

"Educate yourself on your choices because you have them. The history of birth in this country is so great and we just don't know this. We will educate ourselves for months on what television to purchase but won't seem to do any research on being pregnant and giving birth. it seems insane to me. If you knew that the US had the 2nd worst rate of newborn deaths and one of the highest maternal mortality rates, would you look at birthing differently than you thought at the current moment? It's going to take a revolution from the women birthing to make this change. Because even though the cost of giving birth at home is a fraction of the cost of a hospital birth, the insurance companies don't seem to have an incentive to encourage this option. The system is broke, but it's not for the shoved in our face reasons the media and our government would like us to believe."