Where Do I Find a Doula Near Me?
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Unknown Speaker 0:01
Hello welcome back to Kaely Daily. This is our last question in the doula series. And the question is where and how do I find a doula?
Unknown Speaker 0:13
Welcome to 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, welcome back. I'm Kaely Harrod, the host of this beautiful podcast, also birth and postpartum doula childbirth educator, newborn care educator, LOL Ag Leader, author of an awesome childbirth class, and also a parenting membership facilitator. So I need to hone in on how I'm going to classify all of that, I suppose.
Unknown Speaker 0:58
I say that, like I'm not many, many episodes into this podcast, hundreds of episodes later. I need to work on my intro. Um, so.
Unknown Speaker 1:10
So today's question is super basic. Because I want to I want to end on this note, right? Maybe throughout all of this series, you've been like okay, Kaely, I get it. I think I need a doula or I want multiple doulas or whatever, right? I want to postpartum and birth doula and all the things, then how do I find one, right? And it's one thing for me to be like, I'm a great doula.
Unknown Speaker 1:33
You know, I'm in DC. But also, maybe you're not in DC. Most of you are not. In fact, I see where you all listen from, and you're from all over, all over the world, actually. And so where you are and how you hire a doula, it looks differently for everybody. But I want to kind of give you an idea of where to start. So there are a few different resources. One is doula match.com. Now, that's a company that allows doulas to kind of like put their information on. And we can have like our certifications and our qualifications and languages we speak and things like that. In the last two years, they've also added like, Are you a person of color? Are you indigenous?
Unknown Speaker 2:17
Are you a black doula like all of that, so that you can also really look for the person that you're wanting to have on your team. And so that's a really amazing resource to have the other so well, so how that works, let me just give a little bit more information. How that works is you can actually go on doula match. And I'll put the link in the show notes. And also in the description, if you're watching this on YouTube.
Unknown Speaker 2:46
And you can then put in your zip code, your due date, and whatever other things specifically you're looking for. So that you get only people that serve your zip code, your due date, and have whatever qualifications now, if you let's say, you go in and you're like, I want someone in this zip code that's like kind of rural, and this due date, and then I select all these other things, and you get nobody, right, then I would go back and put just your zip code in, and then see who pops up because it's possible or like your zip code and your due date, maybe I think you might have to put your due date but um, it's possible that a doula hasn't kept their
Unknown Speaker 3:31
availability updated. Well, that's one thing. And then the other thing is that if you have if you're in a more rural area or a smaller area, you might not have many options, and doulas, and so you might not be able to be as specific about what you're wanting. Now, another great way to find a doula near you is to literally Google doulas near me, right, obviously, however, know that the people that are going to pop up first, it's not because they're the best doulas, it's because they've been able to either pay for ads, or hire someone or work hard on their own SEO, so that they actually are top of the list. So don't expect for don't like look at that Google result and assume the first three doulas are the best doulas in your area, for instance, right. Now, if you're in an area like DC, there are hundreds of options. So one possibility is to actually look at,
Unknown Speaker 4:34
like how did you do like consultations and then just talk to a bunch of different doulas so you can get a sense of what you're looking for and who you want and what kind of fits with your desires.
Unknown Speaker 4:46
If you're in a more rural area, you'll also want to try to look sooner rather than later because it can be harder to find someone when you don't live in an area that's as greatly populated as the DC area.
Unknown Speaker 5:01
Now if you are in if you're looking for like postpartum care or birth doula, also there are some options for travel doula. So there are some doulas who travel all over the world, doulas to travel all over a particular country. And some doulas, especially in more rural areas drive longer distances. So like in the DC area, some deals only drive like 10 miles, right, because 10 Miles is 1000s of people, maybe millions, a lot of people are in 10 miles, and a bunch of hospitals and a bunch of different facilities to give birth and home birth teams, etc. So were like, I know doulas who are in more like Midwest kind of area, who definitely travel a couple hours on a regular basis to their clients. Now, what that looks like is different for everybody. Right. But that's just something to be aware of.
Unknown Speaker 5:57
Another option is to look based on the training that you're hoping your doula has. So let's say one of the trainings I really love is birthing advocacy, doula training, also doula training International is a great one. And so you could look at their websites. And sometimes they have an actual directory of doulas. And then you can look and say like, Okay, who has had that training in my area that I could look at potentially hiring. So that's another way to kind of hone in on who you would want and how you would want them to be trained and hired, okay, or trained in order to support you. Um, so those are some ways you can you can look for doulas, and a last one is less commonly a good option in my opinion.
Unknown Speaker 6:47
But sometimes a possibility is to ask your care team and kind of see who they've worked with and and who they really like.
Unknown Speaker 6:58
Now, my one caveat to that is if you don't really love your care team, you also don't necessarily want a doula who they love. Right? And so just keep that in mind. I guess the last one that I did not think of prior to recording this lovely episode is that you can ask friends and family. If you have friends and family who've had doulas then definitely ask them who they've had and what they loved about them.
Unknown Speaker 7:25
So if you're like, you know, in New York City, and you have family in Dallas and the family in Dallas had a doula that they loved. Ask them why they loved her or him or that person. What was it about the doula that they really loved? So then that can help you also look for the doula that you're looking for in the state you're in, even if it can't be that same person. Okay, so this is officially the last doula episode of this series. The next will be a bonus episode, and then we'll kind of dive into some postpartum stuff. So until next time, I wish you well informed for the experiences. These episodes are edited and produced by Kaely Herat 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 birth.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
