How Does a Birth Doula Fit Into a Care Team At The Birth?
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Kaely Harrod 0:00
Hello welcome back. Today's question is how does a birth doula sit into the care team during a birth?
Kaely Harrod 0:10
This is Kaely Daily, the bi weekly podcast about all things doula Tips and Tits where we answer one question about pregnancy, labor, postpartum, or lactation, in order to have your journey in this parenting world be just a little bit more informed and filled with consent. Hello, and welcome back. My name is Kaely Harrod. Today we're answering, I am answering your question about what a birth doulas role is on the birth team. Now, this of course, it's a little bit different for each birth for each type of birth, etc. But I'm gonna kind of parse that out a little bit as we go. So first off, I am Kaely Harrod, the host of this beautiful podcast. I'm a childbirth educator, I am actually an author of the birth prep blueprint and postpartum prep blueprint, two of my classes that I created. And also, I am a doula, postpartum and birth doula and a mom and a podcaster, obviously. And I also helped run a parenting community. And then a I'm starting doula mentoring in the new year.
Kaely Harrod 1:24
So I'm very excited you're going to hear about the doula mentoring soon in a couple episodes. I'm super excited to finish up this series on doula hiring, etc, and then move on to some postpartum stuff. So, um, so oftentimes, when I tell someone I'm a doula, they ask if I catch babies, right? Do I catch babies? Like is that? Am I a midwife, basically? And I say no. And people will say, Okay, if I have a midwife Do I need a doula, right. And again, I'm like, we're not the same. So, um, so. So I want to kind of paint a picture for you in a variety of scenarios. first scenario is a hospital birth. So in a hospital birth scenario, there's two different parts of the time when you don't have a lot of support from your care provider and the nurses. So the first is, obviously, when you're at home. Now, my experience with my clients with myself is that you go into labor, call your provider, hey, I think I'm in labor, and they're like, awesome, call me back when you're in more labor.
Kaely Harrod 2:40
Or they say, like, Call me back when you're this far along, or come into the hospital when your contractions are this far apart. And so most of the time, your provider is not going to say to you, at least a hospital providers typically not going to say to you, okay, I want you to go like take a nap and then take a bath and then eat a meal and then watch a movie that you love. Like, they're not going to give you steps to do until then they're just going to be like, come and when your contractions are four minutes apart, right? And so a doula kind of fills that gap, the gap of like, okay, am I actually in labor? How do I figure that out? That's the first bit. And then once I realize I am in fact, in labor, what the heck do I do? Until I get to the hospital? If I'm birthing at the hospital, right? Like, what should that time at home look like? So that's part of it, right? Then you get to the hospital. And you get admitted, during the admission time, like the evaluation, the triage area is what that's called. And kind of the time of being admitted into the hospital, that time, you actually have a lot of attention, because you having a lot of things done. During that time you're having your cervix checked, you're oftentimes answering a bunch of questions about who you are, and all of your health history, and every little bit of data that you've ever had about your life. They're doing some bloodwork, the nurses are putting in an IV, they're monitoring the baby, you're like having a chat with your provider about whether or not you should stay at cetera, right. So that short, initial time at the hospital tends to have more people in it than once you actually get transferred to your labor and delivery room. Now, when you're in your labor and delivery room, you oftentimes don't see your provider beyond just cervical exams, when a decision needs to be made and when they're catching the baby. I don't say that to fault them in a hospital setting. Those providers are managing a lot of different deliveries and a lot of different scenarios and even sometimes emergencies. Right? So it's not to say that that's bad, it's to say that they are not going to be able to spend much time with you in most scenarios. Okay. Then the same is honestly true for the nurses Because the nurses usually have at least two or three patients, depending on the hospital, depending on where you live, and how, how many people what the population is like, right how many hospital settings there are. And so that very much dictates how much time your nurse can spend with you. Obviously, I know nurses that would love to spend a lot of time with you like they were a doula, but oftentimes, they're also helping to manage other people's labor. So like, you know, if room two is currently having a baby, there needs to be an extra nurse in there, if someone's in a C section that require some extra nurses. So there's a lot of different scenarios that are happening on the floor at any given time, that that necessitate that your nurse does not just stay in the room with you, helping you kind of contraction by contraction, okay? And that's not only if you're unmedicated, also, if you're medicated, then like you need to still change positions so that your epidural stays evenly distributed and things like that, some nurses are really great about doing that. And, and other nurses have a really busy floor and don't do that as much, right. And so you can spend hours of time alone in a hospital setting. Or sometimes you see your nurse like once or twice an hour, they just kind of come in check on you see if everything's okay, and then leave again, right? Now you always have the ability to call someone in. So I do not mean that you're going to get to the hospital, and then just be like forgotten about neglected. That's not what I mean. What I mean is don't expect to have moment by moment assistance from either your nurse team or your doctor team, or your midwife team at a hospital in most cases, okay? The so the doula kind of fills that space as well, because we not only provide another set of eyes and ears that's in the room with you to see if what you're doing and having experienced, etcetera, is normal or not. But also, we provide some comfort in the midst of that the ability to change your positions, etc. Now, that means in many ways, we make a nurses job easier, usually, right? Because they don't have to worry about Do you have water, because they know your doula can get your water and they know where the water is in the hospital, right. And so there's a little bit of space for your nurse team to also be able to focus on their nurse portion of their job, and not as much on like getting your water and snacks and things like that, because they know that the doula can do that. And that's not a medical part of the job, right. So that's kind of one scenario. Another scenario is you're going to birth center. Now, there's two things that are different about that. One is usually you wait a lot longer to go into a birth center. Until then you want to go into a hospital. So you have a lot more time at home laboring in most scenarios. So that means your doula can provide that at home support. I don't think if you're giving birth at a birth center, you should have a doula that does not want to come to your house. Because that's a very important part of that time when you're giving birth in a birth center to help a baby be born and to help you cope with labor well, before you ever get to the birth center. Okay. Now, once you're at the birth center, you do typically get a little bit more attention, in part because a birth center tends to have fewer people giving birth at a time, right? So many birth centers have like between two and five or six rooms. So there is not the ability to have like, literally 10 people giving birth at the same time. That means if you have a care team of a nurse and a midwife, or a nurse and two midwives, or two nurses and two midwives, or whatever that looks like, and they're managing three laborers, or they're managing to or just yours, you're of course getting a lot more attention from them than otherwise needed otherwise in a hospital, right? Just because of the volume. Now, that means if you have your nurse or your midwife or both with you more frequently, what is the doula role look like there? So an A birth setting, I mean, a birth center setting.
Kaely Harrod 9:19
My experience is that the doula role is a lot more comfort measures. Because you're always going to be without an epidural in a birth center, right because breast centers don't have epidurals. And so, there's a part of supporting physically supporting a birth that involves a rhythm of comfort and oftentimes as you progress through labor, the amount of physical support you need from your care team is a lot. So you maybe you need like hip squeezes or pressure on your back or you need to like hold on to somebody when you're contracting or you want to slow dance and you're kind of taking turns who you're slow dancing with all Have that is incredibly physical work for the care team. And of course for you for the person and labor more than anybody else, but for the doula for the nurse for the midwife, also a lot of hard physical work, right, your partner etc. So one of the things that doula does is most of that physical work so that your care team can handle anything that comes up medically, which really gives them the space to monitor that stuff really carefully and wonderfully, because your doula is able to do your comfort, measure stuff and kind of take care of that portion. Now, ideally, those roles all kind of work together in like beautiful harmony, right? That has typically been my experience, I know that it's not everybody's experience. But in most cases, when you're with an out of hospital birth team, meaning a birth center, or, or a home birth team, they really value a doula being present, in part because we fill a role that they do not fill, and then they don't need to do that work. And ultimately, I think their patients are more satisfied with their experience. So homebirth is the last of the three that we're talking about. And is similar to birth center, except you're calling the team to you instead of going there. So one of the things that a doula helps navigate is when to go in, if it is time or not, if that happens sooner or later, if there's something that's coming up, that's concerning, right? And so with a home birth scenario, you're not going anywhere you're calling your team to you so that they get there in plenty of time. For whatever the timing is that you've kind of planned out, right. So part of the role of a doula in that scenario, oftentimes is also communicating with your birth team, or helping you communicate with your birth team about when and how they want to join you and and what that will look like. Right? And then again, kind of being like this lovely little like group of care where you're getting medical care on one side from the medical provider providers, and you're getting emotional and physical and educational comfort on the other side from your non medical provider who is your doula? So that's kind of what that looks like, at least in my experience. Now, obviously, all doulas function differently. Obviously, all birth teams function differently. It is not always a beautiful, lovely mash up of personalities and people. But that is how those roles should work together. If they are working together. Well. Okay. So um, we have I think, one more doula episode, unless someone sends me a doula question like today. And then you're gonna hear a little bit about my new doula mentoring in a bonus episode, which I'm super pumped about, because I know some of you that listen to this episode, or do or this podcast are doulas and so I want you to know about it, and to be able to share that news and also then we'll dive into some postpartum information. And we'll start talking with some other providers. I'm super excited to bring some new guests that you haven't heard from some topics that we haven't talked about. So until next time, I wish you well informed consent filled birth. These episodes are edited and produced by Kaely. Her rod as I'm sure you can probably tell, and our amazing music is credited in the shownotes as well. So we look forward to seeing you on the next episode. And in the meantime, have a wonderful and consent filled
Unknown Speaker 13:48
birth.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
A Birth Doula plays a unique and important role on a birth team. Across all birthing locations a birth doula is providing a level of support and education that, when done well, allows the rest of the medical team to focus on their jobs well knowing that the patient is well cared for. That is the dream, when a team works together like magic helping a whole family be born in the process.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Doulas are non-medical professionals so we are doing educational, physical, emotional, spiritual, and moral support throughout our time with a client
Birth Doulas support the client which allows the medical team to do their roles well knowing their patient is well supported
Birth Doulas fill in some gaps of time when your team would otherwise not be with you.
Birth Doulas provide a level of continuity when you’re birthing at a location with shift changes and new providers you’ve never met
RESOURCES
FREE OXYTOCIN GUIDE:
6 Ways to Increase Oxytocin for Labor Progression
https://www.harroddoulaservices.com/free-guide-6-oxytocin-tips
CONNECT with Kaely on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/Harroddoula/
This podcast is hosted by the Birth Prep Blueprint - comprehensive Childbirth Education for expectant parents to feel calm, prepared and confident about labor and birth. Podcast listeners (that’s YOU!) get 10% off! Use the link below and coupon code PODCAST
https://www.harroddoulaservices.com/birth-prep-blueprint
** The Birth Prep Blueprint is offered for only $20 to anyone who qualifies for any kind of social services (meaning that a family has a lower income to the point that they would qualify for WIC or SNAP or Medicaid, etc.). No need to disclose your income, just which service you qualify for and the link can be sent right over. Just email kaely@harroddoulaservices.com to learn more.
If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me @harroddoula
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
