A Doula recognizes birth as a key life experience that the mother will remember for the rest of her life. She is with you, as your support person or pregnancy best friend, on the journey toward parenthood to help you have a better experience.
Translated from Greek, the word doula means woman caregiver or mother’s servant. Nowadays, we use the word to describe a professionally trained and experienced birth attendant who provides the woman and her family with continuous emotional support, physical comfort and assistance in obtaining evidence-based information during the childbearing year. A professional Doula has no agenda, is judgment-free, and supports you in your choices. Your birth is your birth. Make it the BEST!
What is a Doula?
A doula is a non-medical assistant who provides physical, emotional and informational support in prenatal care, during childbirth and during the postpartum period. The Doula value is not only in birth itself. The Doula can work with the couples early on about the different options that are available for the kind of birth they would like to have, something that not often received from their medical care provider.
Doulas usually have a good knowledge of the physiology of birth and the options that are available to you, but don’t do anything ‘clinical’ - that is always the role of the medical care provider. Women are designed to give birth, but we forget that, we get scared, or we don’t trust that our bodies will work. A doula can enable you to have a deeply satisfying and empowering birth.
Why Hire a Doula?
The benefits of hiring a doula include:
- 50% reduction in the cesarean rate
- 25% shorter labor
- 60% reduction in epidural requests
- 40% reduction in oxytocin use
- 30% reduction in analgesia use
- 40% reduction in forceps delivery
Professional Doula Support
Birth and Labor support includes the following:
Emotional Support: Encouragement, Reassurance, Continuous physical presence.
Informational Support: Assistance to families in gathering information about the course of their labor and their options, explanations, non-medical advice.
Physical Support: Comfort Measures, Positioning, Massage, Breathing, Relaxation, and other non-pharmacological pain relief measures.
Advocacy: A Doula helps you find your voice to advocate for yourself and your family in making confident decisions.
Partner Support: Role Modeling, Encouragement, Reassurance
Comfort Measures
- Massage
- Alternate positioning
- Aromatherapy
- Relaxation Techniques
- Heat
- Ice
- Hydrotherapy
- The Birth Ball
- The Rebozo
- Acupressure
- Breath work
Unique Experience
- HypnoBirthing®
- Unmedicated Birth
- VBAC
- Birthing Multiples
- Epidural
- Waterbirth
- Homebirth
- Hospital
- Induced labor
- Stalled/delayed labor
- Breech baby
Additional Training
- CAPPA Certified Labor Doula
- Certified HypnoBirthing® Practitioner
- CAPPA Lactation Educator
- LAMAZE Certified Childbirth Educator
- HypnoBirthing® Fertility Certified Educator
- CAPPA Certified Childbirth Educator
- Certified Sacred Pregnancy Instructor
- CDI Doula
- Registered Yoga Teacher
- Registered Prenatal Yoga Teacher
- Certified Pelvic Floor Yoga Teacher
- Certified Restoratives Yoga Teacher
- Yoga for Fertility
- CPR Certified
We offer several Doula Packages to choose from. 