Majbritt Rayas - What is a doula

The Danish Doula

What is a Birth doula?

The word doula comes from Greek, and refers to a woman who personally serves another woman.

Birth doulas are trained and experienced labor support persons who attend to the emotional and physical comfort needs of laboring women to smooth the labor process. They do not do clinical tasks such as heart rate checks, or vaginal exams but rather use massage, aromatherapy, positioning suggestions, etc., to help labor progress as well as possible. A birth 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. In addition to emotional 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.

A doula provides kindness and comfort to a woman in labor. This is an especially important job, because the doula encourages and provides support to a woman when she is giving birth, one of the most vulnerable times in a woman's life. Although doulas provide services first time parents will appreciate, many women who have already given birth one or more times find the addition of a doula to their birth team an invaluable support.

(Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

This page was last modified 02.08.2008