I highly recommend all birthers and birthing partners to invest in the book “The Birth Partner: A Complete Guide to Childbirth for Dads, Partners, Doulas, and Other Labor Companions” by Penny Simkin with Katie Rohs. These two thoroughly experienced doulas have created a go-to guide for all the information you’ll need to feel prepared for your upcoming birth. I have taken an excerpt below from their work to help describe all that a doula’s work encompasses.
“Doula’s training is focused on physical comfort measures and ways to enhance labor progress. Their training also includes extensive discussion of the emotional shifts the laboring people experience throughout their labors and how to attune themselves to the changing moods and movements of the laboring person. It may be that doulas reduce stress and fear in laboring people. Those emotions increase stress hormones, which are known to impair labor progress through most of labor. Doulas help people feel safe and less afraid or anxious. They also guide and reassure partners. This nonclinical care can improve clinical outcomes (such as lower cesarean rates, shorter labors, fewer requests for pain medication, greater satisfaction with the birth, and fewer newborns who need extra nursing care).”
“Why consider a doula? Childbirth is intense, demanding, unpredictable, and painful, and it can last for a few hours to 24, 36 or even more. Even if you are well prepared, you and the pregnant person may find it difficult to apply your classroom learning in the real situation. If you are not well prepared, all the challenges of labor are baffling and anxiety producing.”
“Of course, you will have a nurse and a doctor or midwife who are likely to be kind and caring, but they will probably be very busy with the clinical aspects of the birth which are their highest priority. Hospital nurses and midwives rarely remain in. the room throughout labor, as they have duties outside the room and are often taking care of more than one laboring patient at a time. They work in shifts, so over the course of labor, several different professionals are likely to be involved in each laboring person’s care. Doctors rely on the nurses to manage the labor, with phone reports as necessary, and they may briefly visit from time to time and will come if problems arise during labor. And, of course, they are there for the birth.”
“One of the most positive developments in maternity care is the addition of the birth doula, who guides and supports women and their partners continuously through labor and birth. The doula usually meets with you in advance, is on call for you, arrives at your home or the hospital when you need her, and remains with you continuously, with few breaks, until after the baby is born. The doula is trained and experienced in providing emotional support, physical comfort, and nonclinical advice. They draw on their knowledge and experience as they reassure, encourage, comfort, and empathize with the laboring person. The doula also works with the partner, guiding and assisting you on how to help, suggesting when to use particular positions, the bath or shower, and specific comfort measures.
A doula cannot and does not take over your role as the birth partner because you know the birthing person better and love them and the baby as no one else does. But there are many times when the person giving birth needs more than one helper in labor, and the partner needs reassurance, advice, and help, too.
Besides helping the laboring person, a doula can help you in these ways:
- Guide you in applying the information you learned in childbirth class to the more stressful and unpredictable labor situation
- Relieve you so you can get a meal, a nap, or just a break during a long or all-night labor
- Bring beverages, hot packs, or ice for the laboring person so you do not have to leave to do so.
- Reassure you if you are worried about the laboring person’s well-being. The doula’s experience provides perspective, which can keep you from misinterpreting normal reactions to labor as signs that something is wrong or that the laboring person is not coping well.
- Help you understand what the laboring person might be feeling and interpret the signs of labor progress to you.
- Provide support and help you participate more confidently, if you do not feel comfortable as the laboring person’s only constant source of support, by making sure the laboring person’s needs are met
- By getting to know the two of you before the birth, the doula can discover your priorities, fears, and concerns and help develop strategies to deal with them.
- Photograph or videotape the two of you during labor and birth or all three (or more!) of you afterward. Check hospital policies on this.
Doulas do not make decisions for you or project personal preferences on you, but rather help you get the information you need to make good decisions. A doula’s goal is to help the laboring person have satisfying birth as they define it.
Numerous scientific trials have compared birth outcomes of women who had doulas and those who did not. In very “high-tech” hospitals with high cesarean and induction rates, women attended by doulas had fewer forceps and vacuum-extractor deliveries and fewer cesareans. They did not need to use as much pain medication. Also, birthers attended by a doula were more likely to report birth experiences that were satisfying versus those who did not have a doula. Although a doula cannot guarantee a normal or an easy labor, statistics show that having a doula results in less need for major labor interventions.”
-The Birth Partner, by Penny Simkin with Katie Rohs
Wildflower Bend Doula 