What is a Doula?
What is a Birth/Labor Doula?
The word doula comes from Ancient Greek (doulē), and refers to a woman of service. A labor doula is someone who has experience in the process of childbirth who provides continuous physical and emotional support for a woman before, during and after childbirth. They are educated in providing comfort measures, psychological, emotional and informational support to help you have a much more safe and satisfying experience.
Labor doulas are also for fathers or partners. For those that would like to take a more active role, Doulas can give gentle guidance to partners, showing them how to perform various comfort measures for the mother. Or, the doula can be the main source of mother's support for partners who feel uncomfortable, are unable to attend or simply wish to take a less active role. Sometimes doulas even take pictures or videos of the birth, so the partners can be included in them.
Labor doulas are extremely useful if you plan on having a natural birth. However, they are particularly useful for women who are abuse survivors, teenagers, single mothers, high risk pregnancies, planned inductions, or scheduled birth by cesarean. Doulas can be a great help by providing affirmations, visualizations, massage, encouragement, informational and partner support. Most of all, they support you in every decision you make!
What is a Monitrice?
A monitrice is usually a doula who has some medical training. Most of them provide services such as vaginal exams to check for dilation, blood pressure and even carry dopplers to listen to your baby's heart beat. This can bring comfort to a laboring woman who is anxious about when to go to the hospital, or when to call the midwife.
What is a Postpartum Doula?
A postpartum doula is someone who comes over after the baby is born and looks after the new family. She does laundry, offers breastfeeding advice, looks after older siblings, cooks, cleans. She's like a nanny and a housekeeper who has specific knowledge about caring for newborns, breastfeeding, postpartum depression and nurturing a new mother.
What are the obstetrical benefits to using a doula service?
Several important studies have shown that continuous labor support from a doula reduced the odds of receiving analgesia by 31 percent,
decreased the use of oxytocin to stimulate labor by 50 percent,
forceps deliveries by 34 percent,
and cesarean sections by 45 percent!
In a randomized study of 416 women, the average length of labor for the group of 212 women supported by a doula was 7.4 hours. The average length of labor for the 204 women in the unsupported group was 9.4 hours.
In a study in a Houston hospital, only 12 percent of the unsupported women had natural, vaginal births (no anesthesia, oxytocin, medication or forceps). In the group of women who had a doula, 55 percent of them delivered naturally. Of the mothers in the Houston study who chose an epidural and did not have a doula, 16.8 percent of them had a cesarean delivery. Of those unsupported who chose narcotic pain relief, 11.6 percent of them had cesarean births. But the mothers who had continuous doula support only had 3.2 percent cesarean deliveries!
Having a doula also appears to affect you even AFTER you give birth!
In a doula study conducted in South Africa they learned: Less doula supported mothers considered labor and delivery to have been difficult. The doula supported moms seemed to have more interest in their babies and more interaction with them. There were feeding problems with 63 percent of the non-doula supported moms and only 16 percent of the doula supported moms. At six weeks postpartum, 28 percent of the non-doula babies had experienced vomiting, as compared to 4 percent of the doula supported birth babies. 69 percent non-doula babies had colds or runny nose, compared to 39 percent of the doula babies. 25 percent of the non-doula babies had a poor appetite and none of the doula supported birth babies reported poor appetites. This may be in part because more of the doula supported mothers bonded well with their babies and were successful at breastfeeding. The doula group mothers said it took them an average of 2.9 days to develop a close relationship with their baby, compared to 9.8 days for the other group of mothers. 23 percent of the mothers who had no doula support during birth suffered from postpartum depression. Only 10 percent of the doula support mothers had this experience.
The effect of doula support on a mother enhance long-term attachment of the infant to the parents. Two long-standing human practices, early mother-infant contact and having the baby remain with the mother, usually with breastfeeding, and continuous support during labor, have wonderful side effects on maternal behavior. If this was provided for more mothers, we might see a higher percentage of securely attached infants and children. Do yourself and your baby a favor and hire a doula!
(From "Mothering the New Mother" Sally Placksin, taken from Well Rounded Momma)