What I Find Challenging As A Doula
On my Instagram account (& you are following us there, right?), during my recent coffee card giveaway, I asked readers to talk about blog posts they thought I should write. I loved all the suggestions and I’m starting with it today: “what has been your most challenging experience as a doula?”
Well. It’s not being at any of the births I’ve been thrilled to attend; watching women rock as they give birth is beautiful. Being part of a team that is all about giving space, caring for, and supporting the mother-infant dyad is really amazing. Seeing mothers achieve birthing goals that we discussed in pregnancy is heady stuff. So, it’s not the births.
What is the biggest challenge, then? I have a two-fold answer to this question. One key struggle I face the cultural perceptions of who doulas are and what we do.
* People assume I’m a midwife. I have great respect for midwives, but I’m certainly not one. As I’ve written about before, a midwife is a medical provider. A doula provides emotional support, education, comfort measures, and is more often able to provide home-connected care than a hospital midwife is (for example: I do at-home prenatal visits and an at home postpartum visit; when was the last time your hospital provider came to your house a few days after the birth to see how you were doing?). Often our society trains us to think that birth is only a medical event, but that could not be further from the truth. A doula serves an important role for all the transitions that unfold with mothers, babies, and families through pregnancy and after birth. Or people assume that doulas are only for those moms who have their hearts set on a “natural” birth. Maybe some (though not all!) doulas have given us this legacy, and it’s something to work with in our own ranks, but no, we don’t only want to help you if you agree to a certain kind of birth. We dearly want to support you for the kind of birth you want. If you are certain you need an epidural, we are there for you. If you want to do it completely intervention free, we are there for you. If you want to discuss options and make flexible plans, we are there for you. A good doula knows with absolute certainty that every woman knows her body and baby best.
That’s the first challenge. The other challenge (and it’s related to the first one) is finding ways to help parents avoid Second Pregnancy Syndrome. Okay, I made that name up. But it’s something I’ve noticed as I work in this field. Very often, parents decide against a doula for their first pregnancy… “We’ll be fine. We don’t want to spend the money. My partner knows how to give great back rubs. My mother will be there. Of course it’s just the birth….”
… and a few years later, I’m interviewing them as potential clients and they’ll say things like: “I wish we’d done a doula before. My partner wasn’t prepared for seeing me in that much pain. Coming home from the hospital was really hard. The hospital was really busy and my nurses were wonderful, but they had to leave frequently, which meant we were alone. I got discouraged and overwhelmed and wished I’d had more moral support to help me figure things out in labor.”
So, first time parents… listen to parents who have done it before! Interested in pain relief? First time mothers with a doula report feeling significantly less pain than first time mothers without one (this study is fabulous!). Interested in reducing risks? Doulas help with that too.
Here’s the thing. Babies don’t need a fancy nursery. The AAP advises room sharing for at least the first 6 months, ideally the first year. Skip the nursery, hire a doula. Babies don’t need a lot of stuff. Put doula services on your registry. Talk to a doula about a payment plan (most offer some form of installment payments). Be a first time parent who says: “I am so glad we hired a doula!” instead of, “I wish we had done a doula after all.”