What is a Doula?
The terms Doula, labor companion, labor assistant and birth assistant all refer to an individual offering one-on-one support for a woman in labor.
As an ALACE Doula I am a professional care provider who understands and trusts the process of birth, who respects its physical and emotional aspects as well as it transcendent and sacred aspects, and who facilitates the birth experience for parents, baby and primary care providers.
**The key word here is facilitates it means to "make easier, to ease, to smooth, to explain, to simplify: but also to empower to allow, and to clear the way." Roget's Thesaurus
We support and encourage woman-centered, non-technical, unmedicated birth as the safest possible choice for mothers and their babies today.
Doulas provide:
• emotional support through encouragement, reassurance and a continuous presence
• physical support with comfort measures, positions, relaxation and breathing skills
• informational support through education, informed choices and alternatives
• Advocates / facilitates by promoting collaboration among the birth team
• And professionalism; all this for the birthing mother and her family.
Who uses a Doula?
Generally women having there baby in the hospital (or in the home birth setting) who desire as natural a childbirth as possible with minimal use of medical technology. These individuals recognize the value of staying at home during the first part of labor, but may not feel confidant in being completely alone once labor gets going.
**FATHERS are often concerned, at first, that doulas may somehow replace there role as the primary support person. They find out quickly, however, that a doula helps insure the sanctity of that role by handling the logistics surrounding the birth and by drawing on her experience to reassure and guide both father and mother thru the natural challenges there birth will present to them.
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