If you’re at our site, it’s pretty safe for us to assume you or someone you love is pregnant, or hoping to be. Here are our top 8 reasons why we think every woman needs a doula on their birth team: 

1. Emotional and Physical Support
Whether it is during your third trimester, labor, delivery or your postpartum period, your Doula can give you emotional and physical support and reassurance. We are trained in all of those things and being removed from your family unit, we are unbiased in the support we give. We will make sure you know that what you are experiencing is natural and normal, that you are strong and brave and capable. 

2. Educational and Informational Support
Doulas have a passion for mamas and babies and are trained in pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. We have a wealth of knowledge and can explain it to you in terms that you won’t need a medical dictionary (or Dr. Google) to understand. If we don’t know the answer to something, we will find out for you. We are not a replacement for your medical professional team. If you have a question that alarms us or is outside of our scope of practice, we will immediately refer you to them. 

3. Pain management and comfort
If your goal is an unmedicated home birth, an epidural with a cocktail of pain killers or something in between, we can help you feel as comfortable as possible. We can help you with physical positioning, focus, meditation, prayer, or any other method you agree on. We can help you with the decision to accept pain medication during your labor, being able to tell the difference between a normal amount of labor pain versus a mother who is suffering. 

4. Partner Support
If you have a partner who will be experiencing this birth with you, don’t worry, we support them, too! While we absolutely can be the primary support person at a birth, we know that many partners want to be that primary support for mama. We include them in all aspects of our care for you. We will help them increase your physical comfort. We will assure them that they are doing a good job and let them know that what you are going through is natural and normal and calm their in-born instincts to protect you that can overwhelm them. 

5. Statistics that back up labor support
The study published by the Cochrane Report in 2017, statistics show that women who are continually supported in labor are more likely to give spontaneous birth (vaginal birth without the need for vacuum, forceps or cesarean section), less use of pain medications, lower rate of cesarean birth, less likely for the baby to have low 5-minute Apgar scores and less negative feelings regarding labor and delivery. 

6. Birth Plan Help
Do you already have your birth plan written? Do you not even know what a birth plan is? We can help. We can help you write your plan and we can help you carry it out.

7. Empowered Self-Advocacy
As an educated part of your birth team, we are there to help you advocate for yourself or help your partner in that. If you feel pressured about a test, procedure or medication, we will give you all of the information you need to make the best decision for you and your baby. We can remind you that you have a voice and you have rights and choices for what happens to your body and your baby.  

8. Gatekeeper
Your pregnancy, labor and birth are a very intimate and emotional time. If there is a situation where you need us to quiet people, take a cell phone away, clear the room, or in any other way be “the bad guy”, we can help you and your partner have the right people in the birth space and the wrong people out!