Can I Be A Doula If I’ve Never Had A Baby?

May 5

Kaely Harrod 00:04
Welcome to doula Tips and Tits. This podcast is a place where we answer one question about doula work, both to support you and to help you support your clients. I'm Kaely Harrod. I've been supporting families in this perinatal space since my oldest was born 12 nearly 13 years ago. I am a birth and postpartum doula childbirth educator, la leche league leader and a doula coach. I love guiding and supporting doulas as they work out their doula business. It is a tremendous joy to be trusted in this way. Thank you for joining us on this journey. Welcome back. Today's question that we're answering is, can I be a doula if I have never had a baby myself? Now, the short answer to this is yes, yes, you can. I think doula work is unique in that it really emphasizes birth, right, and pregnancy. And the reality is, many doulas find their way to this work from their own birth and pregnancy experiences. And so that's a legitimate form of sort of developing the passion or the calling or the even the knowledge of the field of being a doula, right. What that means is that folks who have not had a baby who have not had a pregnancy, who have not given birth, can feel a little out of their depth sometimes. And so I want to reassure you a little bit, that I think sometimes it can actually be a benefit, to not have had a baby yourself as a doula and also that all of us have different experiences of having babies. So even those of us who have had kids do not come to this work with all the knowledge in our own bodies of how it plays out. So I want to give you a little story of my own birth. So my first baby was enormous. He was 11 pounds. And I I laugh every time I say that, because I know when people hear that they're like, What, like 11 pounds, I did not birth him through my vagina, which is great. And so he was 11 pounds, there was nothing wrong with him. There was nothing wrong with me. blood sugar's were great on both of us. My husband is incredibly huge. And so that's who we're blaming for this 11 pound baby, and he owns that it's fine. He's six, five. And so I can't imagine how big my child's children would be if he decides to have children. So he was born via C section, I never went into labor, he never engaged in my pelvis at all. And part of it was his head was enormous. And we knew that and so there was a much higher need for a C section than a typical kiddo. Right? And 11 pounds is like, I'd say a little outside of the range of normal in terms of newborn size. And he was born two days before his due date. So he was born at almost 40 weeks. And so he was he was due on the 13th. He was born on the 11th. So he was full grown, right? Like he was definitely fully developed, but not like overdue or anything like that. So that was my first experience, just straight up Plan C section, right. I got pregnant again pretty quickly. So I got pregnant within about seven months of his birth. And then I had our second son at 15 months, and so 1515 months after my first now that's really like a little bit shy of what doctors like in terms of trying for a VBAC. And so, the other fun fact about me is that I have a funny shaped uterus, it looks like bunny ears. And so my, when I get pregnant, I'm only pregnant in one side. So part of the question was having never had having never had labor. What would that even do to my cervix? Would it open it? Well, would it progressed or not? And also, how big was this kid? Because I knew they knew I had a history of double digit babies. Right? So with my second I went into labor around 38 weeks, a little before 38 weeks, and progressed. Okay, for a while, like I labor for probably like, I don't know, 1213 hours? I guess maybe a little bit. Yeah, right about 12 or 13 hours. And I went in when my contractions were close to like, like seven or eight minutes apart, because they wanted to be sure to monitor and see kind of like, make sure there wasn't any excessive bleeding and things like that, because I had had a huge baby and I'd had a C section. And so I got to about four centimeters. And the reality was that my cervix was not dilating evenly because it was really having a lot more pressure on one side than the other because the baby just was not in the center. And so he He ended up being a C section as well. But one that like, you know, we fully consented to etcetera. Then my daughter, my youngest, she started trying to come at 33 weeks, and I had labor at 33 weeks for about like, once a week for a whole day. And of course, at 33 weeks a provider is wanting you not to be in labor. So the strategy was, anytime I felt like I was getting into a regular rhythm of contractions, we would load up, go to the hospital, I would be put on IV fluid sometimes like medication to calm the uterus down, monitored given steroids for the baby's lungs, like all these different things, also, because now I had had two C sections. So while like I would have loved to have a VBAC, we had a pretty good idea that my cervix didn't really do that well. And also, I'd had two babies. Now she was spaced out a tiny bit more from the from the second one. But still, it had been only about 26 months since I had my first C section. So not that long. In that span of time I'd had to write. And so so in that time, I guess had been more than that had been like 3036 months. And so my, so my doctor had me keep coming in. And he would monitor me, he'd get my labor to stop, he sent me home, basically put me on like bed, modified bed rest. The whole time, it was funny, because he's very, very chill the OB that I had at the time. And so by about 35 and a half weeks, I was having contractions, they wouldn't stop. I was in the hospital again, overnight, getting fluids being, you know, getting medication to calm everything down. And then he came in very calmly, and said, Well, I think we're going to have to have a baby today. And the bad news is we're going to need to do another C section. The good news is you have now very thoroughly given your body a chance for a feedback. And I was like, Thanks, Dr. Williams. I was like, Yeah, you're right. He was like four centimeters is about all you can do. And that's okay. Like, that's, we knew that maybe your cervix wasn't gonna want to do this, you know, and your uterus is interesting, you know, and my midwife, he worked with a midwife, and she was lovely. At one point, she was like, Kaylee, you know, the impact of having half a uterus in your pregnancy is that sometimes it doesn't dilate well, and sometimes you need a C section. The other thing is, she was like, your half of the uterus grows double digit babies girl like this, you have an awesome half, right? So um, I share that because I support a ton of vaginal deliveries, a ton of them. I support a ton of unmedicated births, I support a ton of VBACs. Well, not a ton of V backs, but like I support v backs often right? And it does not make me worse at supporting them that I have never pushed a baby out of my own body like that. And it's not about me, right? So I'm not only saying like, be like me, haven't been totally fine that you haven't done this. What I mean is, I can support them really well, not having had that exact experience myself. And that's okay, that doesn't make me better or worse at it, right? It's just a part of the process. Now one thing I will say is, I am very good at supporting an N planned C section happening because that is part of my life. Right. And that's part of my story. That's part of my journey. And so there are advantages to in some ways, right to things that you are able to share with a client. But those don't have to be pregnancy and birth things.
Kaely Harrod 09:00
Those can also just be life things. So if you have not had a baby, one huge, huge, huge benefit I think you have is that you do not have a single bit of baggage around your own birth experiences. And I can tell you as a doula who had births that were not my ideal scenarios, I had planned a water birth I had planned a holistic, like unmedicated experience prior to my first C section. I, I carried that with me for a number of births at the beginning where I was kind of like ah, you got the birth I wanted, you know, and over time I was able to kind of let that go. But the reality is that you do not carry that baggage with you if you do not have your own experiences in this field. The other thing is that you you're able to kind of come without bias without like, like let's say you're a person who who had a baby and then always got an epidural and thought everyone should have an epidural, you're gonna bring that at least a little bit to the birth support that you do, right. And so you don't have any of that if you haven't had a baby yet, you also physically have an easier time in many ways supporting a birth when you aren't currently pregnant, or you don't have like a breastfeeding baby or something like that. So there are tremendous advantages. Now, of course, the other advantage for someone who does not have a pregnancy or a baby at the moment, but does want that in the future, is the way increased knowledge and support that happens when you already know what you need and what you want in the midst of your own pregnancy in the future. So I do think it can be beneficial if someone's planning to have a baby or is able to have a baby, which is not a requirement either of this work. You don't have to ever want to have your own baby, that's okay. And you I know that there are people that can't have their own babies that do this work, you know. So I say all that to say, you absolutely can be the most amazing doula without ever having had anything inside of your own uterus. And again, a pregnancy any kind of experience with birth, that's okay. Do not let that hold you back and do not let you yourself convince yourself that it makes you less of an asset to your clients because it does not. Okay. Now, as always, I would love to hear what questions you have. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna start having some episodes with special guests again, which I'm so excited about. And the first one up is a copywriter. And so that is going to be amazing. You're going to hear all about like making fantastic websites and things like that, how to kind of hone in on your messaging. And so that's going to be the first one we're going to talk about brand colors. At some point. We're going to talk about what doulas need to know about referring to different individuals, different professionals. So I am super excited for that. Stay tuned for those episodes. In the meantime, I will have more information about my own doula coaching coming out for the month of June because that is when we are starting the next cohort. So also keep an eye out for that information. If you have a question that you'd like me to answer on the podcast, reach out to me on Instagram or on Tik Tok and send me a quick message and let me know what it is. I'm happy to answer it and also give you a shout out. So until next time, I wish you consent filled amazing doula experiences. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the doula Tips and Tips podcast. If you learned something today or had an aha moment we'd love for you to share that on Instagram and tag us at Herat doula, so we can celebrate alongside you. If you found this podcast helpful. We would so appreciate you taking a second to leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast app that helps other doulas find us as we do this work together. This podcast is intended as educational and entertainment it is not medical advice or business advice. Please consult your own medical or legal team for your own needs around

Today’s topic is on a long list of biases and misconceptions people have about doula work. If we think about other professions we do not require that people have a specific experience in what they do before they do it, or ever for that matter. You can be an amazing doula whether or not you even have a womb! Or ever plan to have children. Or if you would love children but can’t have them. None of these things keep you from being an amazing doula!

Not only is the answer to this question absolutely! You can absolutely be a doula if you haven’t had children or given birth. Also, I would argue there are some advantages to it! If you have not had a baby, one huge, huge, huge benefit I think you have is that you do not have a single bit of baggage around your own birth experiences.

Now, of course, the other advantage for someone who does not have a pregnancy or a baby at the moment, but does want that in the future, is the increased knowledge and support that happens when you already know what you need and what you want in the midst of your own pregnancy in the future. So I do think it can be beneficial if someone is planning to have a baby or is able to have a baby, which is not a requirement either of this work.

Key Takeaways:

You can be a doula if you’ve never had a baby or even if you never intend to have a baby!
You can even sometimes use that as an advantage in your work!
You can also benefit from your knowledge and work if you do plan to have a future pregnancy

CONNECT with Kaely on TikTok or Instagram

https://www.tiktok.com/@doulacoach

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Kaely Daily is produced by Kaely Harrod of Harrod Doula Services

It is sponsored by The Birth Prep Blueprint Childbirth Class

Music by Madirfan: Hidden Place on Pixabay