The Top Ten Reasons to Hire a Doula

A doula can help you to feel better about your birth experience. A study conducted by a group of researchers in California found that women who had the support of a doula during their babies’ births were more likely to feel positive about their birth experiences than women who did not have the benefit of such support. While 82.5% of the women who had the support of a doula during labour rated their birth experiences as “good,” only 67.4% of women who laboured without the support of a doula felt similarly positive.

A doula can leave the father-to-be free to focus more fully on his key role during the birth: providing you—the mother-to-be—with emotional support.

-A doula can help to take some of the pressure off of the father-to-be. Having someone else on hand to support you can allow him to take a guilt-free dinner or bathroom break. (It’s hard not to feel like the world’s biggest heel if you have to take a bio break just when your contractions are starting to peak.)

-A doula can help to reduce the likelihood that you will require an epidural. A study conducted at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, found that 7.8 percent of women using doulas requested an epidural as compared to 55.3 percent of women labouring without a doula.

A doula can offer helpful suggestions on ways to cope with the labour when you’ve pretty much run through your own repertoire of coping strategies.

A doula can help breastfeeding get off to the best possible start. A study conducted in South Africa found that women who have support from doulas during labour are more likely to be breastfeeding exclusively when their babies are six weeks old.

A doula can help to answer your questions about the birthing process and provide on-the-spot reassurance when you need it—something that can be truly invaluable if you find yourself with a lot of questions and concerns.

A doula can act as your advocate in dealing with the hospital staff. It can be hard to speak up for yourself in between contractions.

A doula can promise to be there, even if your partner can’t. If there’s a chance that your partner isn’t going to be there at the birth (possibly because he’s scheduled to work out of town around your due date) or if you’re going to be giving birth without a partner, a doula can provide you with some much-needed support.

A doula can act as your cheering section. When you’re trying to weather the storms of transition, sometimes you just need someone to tell you that you’ve got what it takes to get through this—and to say it with enough conviction that you actually believe her! (That’s an important part of the doula job description, by the way.)