What is a doula?

When I tell people I'm hiring a doula to be present at Shim's birth, I often am met with blank stares. Well, except in Charlotte, b/c they are more common here. But from most people, I just get questions and confusion. So, I thought I would dedicate an entire post to what a doula is, and why I want one. Here is a quick description:

A doula is a non-medical assistant who provides various forms of non-medical support (physical, emotional and informed choice) in the childbirth process. Based on a particular doulas training and background, the doula may offer support during prenatal care, during childbirth and/or during the postpartum period. A birth doula is a continuous care provider for labor in many settings. Thus a labor doula may attend a home birth or might attend the parturient woman during labor at home and continue while in transport and then complete supporting the birth at a hospital or a birth center.
The word doula comes from Greek δοῦλα, and refers to a woman of service. In Greece, the word has negative connotations, denoting "slave", as some doulas have inadvertently discovered through their international social networks. For this reason, some women performing professional labor support choose to call themselves labor companions or birthworkers. Anthropologist Dana Raphael first used the term doula to refer to experienced mothers who assisted new mothers in breastfeeding and newborn care in the book Tender Gift: Breastfeeding (1973)[citation needed]. Thus the term arose initially with reference to the postpartum context, and is still used in that domain. Medical researchers Marshall Klaus and John Kennell, who conducted the first of several randomized clinical trials on the medical outcomes of doula attended births, adopted the term to refer to labor support as well as prenatal and postpartum support.[1]
Labor/birth support doulas are labor support persons who attend to the emotional and physical comfort needs of laboring women to smooth the labor process. They do not perform clinical tasks such as heart rate checks, or vaginal exams but rather use massage, aromatherapy, reflexology, positioning suggestions, etc., to help labor progress as well as possible. A labor/birth support doula joins a laboring woman either at her home or in hospital or birth center and remains with her until a few hours after the birth. Some doulas also offer several prenatal visits, phone support, and one postpartum meeting to ensure the mother is well informed and supported. The terms of a labor/birth doula's responsibilities are decided between the doula and the family. In addition to emotional, physical and informational support, doulas work as advocates of their client’s wishes and may assist in communicating with medical staff to obtain information for the client to make informed decisions regarding medical procedures.

So, I have a labor doula, not a postpartum doula. Her name is Annette Rodgers, and she is also our hypnobabies instructor. (Hypnobabies will be my next post). She is also a certified massage therapist. You may be wondering why simply having Eric there won't be enough support. Honestly, he probably would be. But I think when he sees me in extreme pain, he won't be able to support my wishes for a natural child birth. He'll want me comfortable and happy, which will be drugs and an epidural. I truly don't know if I'll achieve the natural childbirth (NCB) I have envisioned. I may very well feel that first contraction and scream for the epidural. I won't get into all the reasons I personally want a NCB. The biggest one is my previous stated desire for the whole process to be normal and natural. I also want a perfectly alert and drug free baby.

Since my doula is a massage therapist, she'll use alot of massage and accupressure techniques during labor. She also will be able to help me focus on the hypnobabies techniques since she's the one teaching us that. More importantly, she'll be encouraging me the entire time that I CAN do it, that "my body knows this". This quote is my personal mantra for the entire labor process. Let's just hope it works....