Doula services
What is a doula and what do they do?
A doula is a woman experienced and trained in childbirth who provides advice, information, emotional care, and non-medical physical comfort to a mother before, during and after her baby is born.
People hire a doula for different reasons:
- First time couples, when birth is a new experience and may feel daunting
- Women who have had challenging births previously can benefit from having the continued one to one presence of another woman with experience of labour
- Women who have complex obstetric or pregnancy history may appreciate someone to talk things through with
- Women with partners, women without partners
Pregnancy and birth is an exciting, magical time, but it can also be very worrying and sometimes frightening. Women may no longer have the family support that was once there to provide support during late pregnancy, labour and birth, and in the early days with a newborn. They can feel very alone.
A doula can help by:
- Providing continuity of caring support, mothering the mother
- Debriefing a previous birth experience
- Identifying needs and priorities
- Leading you towards information and research
- Helping you to write your birth plan
- Giving you confidence in your body's ability to birth your baby
- Enabling partners to feel included, valued, supported and informed
- Being there to support you at consultant or midwife meetings
- Debriefing after your birth
- Giving support and practical help in the first few weeks of motherhood
Birth and Baby Reality know that a doula can be very effective and provide additional support for women. To complement the services we provide we are happy to provide a link to Warwickshire Doulas. They are a dedicated group of doulas offering birth and postnatal support in and around the Warwickshire area.
Please note that Birth and Baby Reality are not an agent for this service.
