For the mother, birthing involves every fibre of your being – physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual – with or without your permission - regardless of how or where you give birth: vaginal, surgical, with or without pain medication, home or hospital, even in the car on the way!

For the partner – birthing involves every part of you except physical; it taps into your mental, emotional, and even spiritual self.

Birthing is a primary experience and of great significance.

Consider asking an older woman in your life about her birth(s). Most women remember an amazing amount of detail no matter how long ago the story took place.

You might have a basic understanding of ... anything: plumbing, dental care, car mechanics, or climbing Mount Everest.

But with a burst pipe, tooth pain, or transmission problems, we tend to go to the experts. Not because we can't figure it out, but because our focus has been in other areas and other people has spent time learning how to do that thing well.

Climbing Mount Everest is best accomplished with someone who knows the nuances of the territory, the weather, the parameters of safety, and, most importantly, who has experience.

Even with good quality prenatal classes, there is so much to know about the physiology of birth, the psychological and emotional processes, what to expect in the hospital before, during and after the birth, and what is normal in the first weeks with a newborn.

A doula learns about your wants and needs and helps you to navigate the whole journey so that you can have your best experience. She has worked with different births in different circumstances, and has great ideas for making your journey the best that it can be!

Your doula is a prenatal, labour, birth, and postpartum sherpa!

Here is a practicality: typically, your doctor, kind and lovely as they are, has to have medical safety as a top proirity.

If you have a midwife, they may pay more attention to your inner wellbeing but, ulitimately, their top priorty is also medical safety.

Medical safety is a wonderful thing and something that we should not take for granted!

Having said that birth, unlike other medical procedures, is not solely medical. There is so much more to birthing than the safe extraction of an infant from your body (such as an appendectomy!)

A doula tends to the need for knowledge, information, and emotional support. She is also a stable presence that is there just for you, no matter what happens.

A doula provides continuous support for women in labour and for her partner.

 "Compared with clinical providers and hospital staff, doulas spend six to eleven times as much time supporting their pregnant clients. 

[The] continuous presence of a doula during pregnancy is one of the most effective tools to improve labor and delivery outcomes."

"As doula care is a proven, cost-effective means of reducing racial disparities in maternal health and improving overall health outcomes, [a]ll pregnant and postpartum people deserve access to full spectrum doula care.

https://healthlaw.org/doula-care-improves-health-outcomes-reduces-racial-disparities-and-cuts-cost/

Studies have shown that having a doula eases and calms the parental experience resulting in:

• 39% decrease in the chance of having a C-section
• 15% increase in having a spontaneous vaginal birth
• 10% decrease in the use of medication for pain relief
• 41 minute decrease in length of labor
• 38% decrease in low five-minute APGAR score for baby
• 31% decrease in being dissatisfied with the birth experience

From The VBAC Link

The VBAC Link summarizes what a doula does quite beautifully!

(P.S. VBAC stands for Vaginal Birth After Caesarean)

Offer support and [yes,] love

• Encouragement: Doulas build you up and keep you going, labor coaching using affirmations and motivational words.
• Presence: Doulas offer a calm presence in the birthing room, helping you and your birthing partner(s) to stay calm and manage any anxieties or fears around childbirth. 
• Physical touch and comfort measures: Counter pressure can offer a lot of relief when laboring. Doulas are trained to help ease discomfort in all the special places like the hips, sacrum, knees, and back. 
• Comfort and reassurance: Because birth is unpredictable, there can be situations where options are given. Doulas can offer their trained expertise and provide reassurance in the decisions being made. 
• Partner support: Labor can sometimes be long, leaving birth partners tired and restless. Doulas offer extra support, so your birthing partner can rest, eat, and recharge. 
• Food: Eating is often forgotten about by both the birthing person and the partner in labor. Doulas can help sustain the energy of you and your partner [by reminding you to eat and drink!] 

Dr. Kennell was one of the very first scientists to research and investigate the benefits of continuous labor support for birthing women, and along with Dr. Klaus, Penny Simkin, Annie Kennedy and Phyllis Klaus, founded Doulas of North America, which later became DONA International, a well-respected , worldwide doula organization committed to training both birth and postpartum doulas and providing a doula for every woman who wants one.

“Many, many thousands of women have birthed with the support of a doula, enjoying the benefits observed by Drs. Kennell and Klaus when they first started their research, and documented again and again since then; shorter labors, lower cesarean rates and reduced interventions.”  (Kennell, et. al 1991)

Kennell, J., Klaus, M., McGrath, S., Robertson, S., & Hinkley, C. (1991).  Continuous emotional support during labor in a US hospital.  JAMA:  the Journal of the American Medical Association, 265(17), 2197-2201.

The postpartum period is defined by the early hours, days, and weeks after giving birth. These hours, days, and weeks are full of new experiences: some feel fine, and some don't. Either way, having the support of a doula - especially if she attended your birth - can improve your experience of those early days.

In past times, new parents could count on their mothers, grandmothers, and other older women in their community to shed light on the many questions that come with a new baby.

This is not always possible in our current time, and a doula can stand in for a similar kind of help.

A client from a non-Western culture asked, “Do you do what mothers do?” I asked what her mother would do if she were here and listened carefully to her answer.

“Yes,” I said, “a doula does what mothers would do if they were present.”

We spend so much time preparing for labour and birth that, in some ways, we can forget that a baby is coming into our lives, bringing a whole lot of chaos, cries, diapers, and laundry with them.

You can't even imagine the lack of sleep - it is a shock for most parents - and that on top of the fatigue of labour and birth.

Having a plan that is tailored to your specific needs, wants, and how you live within your own space is incredibly helpful!

The responsibility of a tiny, dependent human, and all of the feelings that come with big change can feel overwhelming. Even a planned and much-wanted baby can bring feelings of, “YIKES! What have I/we gotton into.”

I’m not trying to stress you, it’s just a reality much like taking a new job, or setting off on a trip around the world, buying a house, or getting married; it may be a good and wanted step in life but it comes with it’s own secret jitters.

Couple that with fatigue from a long labour and /or birth, and for the mom, the physical marathon that labour and birth is, and a tiny person crying, and milk not established yet and a billion opinions coming your way, family and friends that want to see you and meet the baby, and …

You get the idea. All you want to do is sleep so that you can get a grip on things. But somebody has a stomach the size of a cherry and it needs refilling pretty often.

Again, I’m not trying to scare you, but those early days have the potential to feel like you are in over your head and that without the certainty of of knowing what to do.