I have a supportive partner, why do I need a doula?
The most well informed partner cannot replace the value of a doula. While they are equally important, and I want to enhance your partners role as much as possible, we have very different roles. My role is to bring calmness and peace to your birth, ensure your birth plan is met as closely as possible and provide comfort when times can feel scary or uncertain.
I encourage you partner to participate as much as he or she wants to! I think it is important that you both bond over this experience and feel that nothing was taken away from anyone.
Does a Doula take the place of the partner?
NO! A doula does not replace the partner, rather enhance the role! This is a challenging time for both mother and partner. A doula has attended many births with couples and gained the knowledge needed to help each couple achieve the desired birth experience. Many labours last several hours; a doula's presence allows the partner to take guilt free breaks so that he/she can go get a bite to eat, take a nap, or make a phone call without feeling that the birthing mother is left alone. Society places a lot of pressure on partners to provide the sole support for the birthing mother during labour. Many partners would prefer to just experience the moment with their spouse, without the pressure to perform.
I want to help your partner become more involved feeling like an active participant rather than an observer. As your doula, I can provide full support to you, allowing your partner to take a back-seat from active support and give him/her the chance to experience the birth along side you. This allows me to provide guidance on what comfort measures should be tried based on your birth plan and coach your partner in how to help you. A partners role and support is very important to a successful birth. It is important that both parties participate in the birth process so it is memorable for each of you!
Dads and Doulas: Key Players on Mothers Labour support Team
Portions taken from "Dads and Doula's" c/o DONA International Paper, Full Brochure available.
There is a time when expectant fathers were portrayed as anxious, floor pacing, cigar smoking men who were tolerated in hospital corridors until the long awaited moment when a nurse or doctor would announce they were the proud father of a daughter or a son. Today's expectant fathers are different.
When it comes to pregnancy, birth, and parenting, today's father wants to share everything with his partner. He wants to be actively involved; ease his partner's labour pain, welcome his baby at the moment of birth and help care for his newborn at home. A labour doula can help a father experience this special time with confidence! With doula support, fathers tend to stay more involved with their partner rather than pull away in times of stress.
Today, a father's participation in birth preparation classes or his presence at prenatal visits and in the delivery suite is a familiar occurrence. Yet, we sometimes forget that the expectations of his role as "labour coach" may be difficult to fulfill. Sometimes it is also culturally inappropriate for an expectant father to be so intimately involved in the process of labour and birth. At times a father may not understand a woman's instinctive behaviour during childbirth and may react anxiously to what a doula knows to be the normal process of birth. He may witness his partner in pain and understandably become distressed. Your doula can be reassuring and skilfully help you to cope with labour pain. The father-to-be may need to accompany his partner during surgery should a cesarean becomes necessary. Not all fathers can realistically be expected to "coach" at this intense level.
Many fathers are eager to be involved during labour and birth. Others, no less loving or committed to their partners well being, find it difficult to navigate in unchartered waters. With a doula, a father can share in the birth at the level he feels most comfortable with. The doula's skills and knowledge can help him to feel secure and more relaxed. If the father wants to provide physical comfort such as back massage, change in positions, and help his partner to stay focused during contractions. Your doula can provide that guidance and make suggestions for what may work best. The fathers presence and loving support in childbirth is comforting and reassuring. The love he shares with the mother and his child, his needs to nurture and protect his family are priceless gifts that only he can provide.
With her partner and a doula, a mother can have the best of both worlds: her partners loving care and attention and the doula's expertise and guidance in childbirth.