Doula Services

The Role of a Doula

Doulas do provide:

Emotional support

Practical assistance

Comfort measures

Information

Doulas do not provide:

Clinical skills

Medical advice

Recommendations

Doulas Make a Difference

It has been clinically shown that having a doula at your birth can make a difference. Rates of interventions and caesarean birth are significantly reduced.

After the birth, women who have had a doula have lower rates of postpartum depression, and report greater overall satisfaction with their birth.

How Much Will it Cost?

Our doula services include 1-2 prenatal meetings, phone and e-mail support throughout pregnancy, on-call availability for your birth, attendance when you need support during labour until 1-2 hours after the baby is born, and remaining available to you for about a month post partum to answer questions and help with breastfeeding. Your investment for this service is $750.

A Doula’s Role

A Doula is a woman experienced with childbirth who provides physical, emotional, and informational support to the expectant family before, during, and after birth.

Doulas recognize birth as a key life experience that a woman will remember all her life. The Doula works to nurture and protect that experience by encouraging the woman to give birth in her own unique way.

A Doula provides continuity of care, emotional support, physical comfort measures, and an objective viewpoint. She helps the woman and her partner to obtain the information they need to make informed decisions. She may suggest different positions to enhance the progress of labour or use massage techniques to relieve pain and tension.

Her most valuable tool is her heart. She is able to relate to the woman in a way that her family and caregivers cannot. She works to draw the family together to provide all the support the labouring woman needs.

Our doulas have experience in many different birth environments and with various birthing circumstances. They are specialists in supporting unmedicated births, with a special interest in homebirths. Choices Childbirth Services’ doulas hold advanced level waterbirth certification from Waterbirth International.