What is a Doula?
A trained doula has a unique role as one who guides a woman through the process of laboring, delivery, and connecting with her newborn.
A doula is not a midwife, a doctor, a partner, or a nurse.
From the moment a mother reaches out, a doula is a support person, ready to guide the mother to resources, and calm her fears. A doula provides a mother with options, helping to explore all of the many ways she can choose to give birth. A doula may work with the mother to develop a birth plan.
A doula is not medically trained and does not take part in any of the medical aspects of pregnancy or delivery. With training and gained wisdom, a doula can guide parents by providing adequate resources and statistics enabling them to make educated decisions.
Being a doula is an immense, and time-consuming, responsibility. Before one chooses to become a doula, it is imperative that they are aware of the required flexibility: the ability to be able to attend a birth at any hour of the day and to be able to be there for the laboring mother completely during the entire labor and delivery process. Each mother will have a different set of needs, and each birth will go differently. Easy adaption to new plans, and an ability to recognize where and when one is needed, are skills that will serve a doula well.
Labor and delivery can be a messy, frightening, and sadly, at times tragic, ordeal. The few first hours after birth, a doula is there for the mother in whichever capacity they can be. Some doulas will remain in touch with the mothers for weeks, or months afterward, to provide support and guidance.
Being a doula is simultaneously exhausting and rewarding. Helping mothers, and their spouses, experience the birth of their child in the most positive, relaxed, empowered way possible is a doulas goal, and it’s a goal they can reach over and over again.