Why hire a Doula
When I was pregnant with my first child, I had never heard of a Doula, but god did I need one! After he was born and I became interested in the Birthworld the term Doula kept popping up, so I started following a couple on instagram and having conversations with people in the know. Fast forward 7 years to being desperate to have a second baby, I was obsessed. These people were amazing, what they did was magical, how could families have such beautiful births? How could this one person help facilitate such a powerful, safe environment?
How? Because they are there to support you in your hopes and dreams for your birth, no matter what that might be. Doulas will attend whatever birth you want, you don’t have to be languishing in a roll top bath with flower petals all round you in a room lit with a million fairy lights. You want a planned Cesarean Section, they’ll be there. You want all the pain relief, they’ll be there. You want to hypnobirth at home, they’ll be there. Doulas are for everyone, and they will fight for your right to choose. If your birth isn’t quite going the way you’d hoped, they’ll advocate for you, they’ll bring the HCP’s back to your birth plan, they’ll give you the courage to decline any intervention you might not want, but they’ll also remind your midwife of the things you do want.
They’ll give you evidence based information to take to your antenatal appointments, they’ll listen to your worries and fears, they’ll hype you up, they’ll encourage you, they'll help you find the strength you always had but you might have lost along the way.
And they aren’t just for the birthing person, they can be invaluable for the birth partner too. Your birth partner wants to support you, to love you, to keep you safe. It’s hard to do that fully if they don’t understand what's happening, if a medical term is used they don’t understand or if they're having to re-fill the birth pool all the time. You’re Doula will reassure them that everything is ok, they can explain terminology to them, they can do all the thankless tasks, like getting snacks, keeping water temperature right, reminding you both to go to the toilet, so your partner can be in every phase with you 100%.
You might be thinking, why would I pay for someone to do that when my mate could probably do the same thing. Well, evidence based studies like the Cochrane review have shown that if you hire a Doula you could be more likely to go into spontaneous labour, less likely to have any pain relief including epidurals, less likely to have negative feelings about childbirth, less likely to have an instrumental delivery and cesarean, more likely to have a shorter labour by approx 40mins and less likely to suffer from postnatal depression.
But it doesn’t end there, some Doulas also offer postnatal support, which may include - Breast/Chest feeding support, light house work, meal prep, support with babywearing and cloth nappy hire. All of these things are conducive to families bonding and learning in a less stressful environment in the fourth trimester. Who wants to be hoovering when you could be napping with your baby!
So, the question should be - why wouldn’t you hire a Doula?
Feb 2020
