| When birthing moved into the hospital, nurses took on the role of nurturing woman along with their many clinical responsibilities. The woman's need for the warm companionship of a loved one may not be met by the nurse. Although nurses are experienced in dealing with a laboring woman's emotional and physical needs, they can seldom guarantee the time or support a women might need to last throughout the labor. Especially in hospital settings with shift changes, lunches, heavy paperwork and multiple patients. Fathers and family members were invited into the hospital maternity area. This is where the doula enters in as the newest member of the family maternity care team. Together, along with empowered and informed birthing parents, we are achieving positive and memorable birth experiences.The word doula comes from Greek history, as a woman who helped the lady of the house through her childbearing years. A childbirth doula is often referred to as a trusted woman experienced in childbirth and knowledgeable with the birth process, which provides continuous physical, emotional and informational support to the birthing woman and her family. Today, doula’s provides the laboring mother with physical and emotional support that women in many cultures have historically enjoyed and valued.
How a Childbirth Doula Can Serve Your Family
Childbirth Doulas are trained to provide continuous emotional support, physical comfort and to facilitate communication between the mother, her partner and her medical caregivers. Doulas help new parents prepare for the birth of their child. They help laboring women with relaxation, pain management techniques, effective positioning and movements to help labor progress. Doulas assist women and their partners to achieve the birth they desire in the hospital, birth center, or at home. The doulas knowledge of the birth process and experience bring a comfort to mother’s through medicated, non-medicated and cesarean births.
The Benefits of a Childbirth Doula
The benefits of having a doulas support in labor has been recognized by the World Health Organization, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologist of Canada, the Institute for Health Care Improvement (Boston), and the Medical Leadership Council; an organization of 1200 US Hospitals. Continuous emotional support for laboring women has become an essential component to improving the quality of maternity care and increasing satisfaction of the women’s birth experience.
Recent studies have shown that a doulas encouragement, reassurance, practical knowledge of comfort measures, and labor enhancing techniques, can help with pain and anxiety for the laboring mother. This also can decrease the length of labor, which decreases mother's request for pain medications, and the chance of a cesarean birth. When a laboring woman feels safe and secure, is constantly reassured and is less frightened, labor progresses. Oftentimes, obstetrical interventions are minimized so that the mother can trust and allow her body to give birth, all the while feeling safe and secure.
 There is also evidence to show that mothers who are nurtured throughout labor, and immediately after birth, have healthier babies and increase mother to baby success in breast feeding and have greater maternal satisfaction and bonding with their babies. They are more likely to appreciate their newborn, breastfeed longer, be more satisfied with their birth experience, and are less likely to suffer from postpartum depression.
Numerous studies have shown that the presence of a doula at a birth results in:
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50% reduction in cesarean rates*
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40% reduction in vacuum assisted deliveries*
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25% shorter labors*
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60% reduction in epidural requests*
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40% reduction in oxytocin (Pitocin) to speed up labor*
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30% reduction in mothers request for pain medication*
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Increase success in breastfeeding *
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Better mother-infant bonding*
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Reduced post-partum depression*
*(Mothering the Mother: How a Doula Can Help You Have a Shorter, Easier, and Healthier Birth), Klaus, Kennell, and Klaus
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