Dedicated to the Development of Doulas and Our Profession

What U.S. Birth Professionals Need to Understand About ICWA

The Indian Child Welfare Act – why is that relevant to my practice?The laws concerning children’s rights changed earlier this year. Although standards vary among the 544 tribal nations recognized by the United States government, some tribes consider a person with one drop of Native American blood as a member.  While only slightly over five million people have full or partial Native American heritage, the growth rate within the population is more than double that of o…

Hospital Agreements: An Opportunity For Engagement [Part II]

If a doula agreement is being waved in front of you, congratulations! It means that your doula community has gotten too large to ignore and is having enough of an impact that the hospital wants to exert some control. Now the real work begins, not with clients, but with the institutions where our clients are choosing to birth. You have an opportunity to create a collaborative atmosphere even if their actions seem hostile at the moment. This is politics, system change,…

Hospital Agreements: The Wrong Solution for the Right Problem

Birth doulas are concerned about hospitals requiring signed agreements in order for them to practice their livelihood on the facility’s grounds. Some agreements outline scope of practice behaviors and even have vaccination requirements. My concern is that these agreements are seen by hospital leaders as an easy solution, without realizing that agreements without prior negotiation lead to greater conflict and tension, thus worsening the situation for their staff rathe…

Doulas Are Paraprofessionals

Encouraging professional behavior by doulas is one of the purposes of this blog, but it needs to be clear that the doula occupation is a paraprofession, not a profession. Community based, hospital employed, and independent practice birth doulas clearly fit dictionary and research interpretations and even the U.S. Department of Labor classification. However postpartum doula work is not such a neat fit. One of the definitions for para…

Birthrape And The Doula

“At many births, while I have my hand on a woman’s arm reminding her to breathe, someone has their hand in her vagina digging around, her eyes are wide, she’s trying to get away, screaming STOP… What do I do? What do I say? How do I help make it right? I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. It seems so wrong.” [excerpt from one email among many I’ve received over the years]

Dear Doula,

I wish I could tell you that these kinds of things only happen to you, t…

Doulaing For Friend’s Births

It’s so thrilling to imagine being a doula for your friend’s pregnancy and birth! For some doulas this is what draws them to the work from the beginning. They want to make sure family members and dear ones have the best experience possible and to help make that happen. But underneath these altruistic desires is the reality of what going to our friend’s births really means. Sometimes it’s a harsh learning.

Ever since I started doulaing, I wondered what was dif…