What Is A Doula ?

"A Doula is a woman experienced in childbirth who provides continuous physical, emotional, and informational support to the mother before, during and after childbirth."
Klaus, Klaus & Kennell, Mothering the Mother







A Doula...

• Provides information during pregnancy, labour, birth and post-partum, enabling the woman and partner to make informed decisions.
• Believes in a woman's ability to know her body, her labour and her baby; helps her trust in this knowledge and draw on her strength.
• Supports the mother throughout the entire labour and birth, providing continuous emotional reassurance and comfort.
• Understands the physiology of birth and the emotional and physical needs of a woman in labour.
• Offers guidance for comfort measures (including massage), and positions to manage pain, enhance progress and minimize interventions.
• Provides support and guidance to the father/partner and complements rather than assumes his/her role.
• Recognizes birth as a life experience that the mother and father/partner will remember forever.