Why You Should Hire a Doula in Charlotte, NC
Why invest in a Doula (Doo-Lah)?
What is a doula? Why you should hire one in Charlotte, NC, and questions to ask when interviewing!
written by: Heidi Snyderburn, BirthStory.com
Author’s note
The following is an excerpt from my 42-week Pregnancy guidebook + journal, Birth Story.
You deserve a doula
Mama, ask for a doula. No, fight for a doula. You will have a safer, healthier birth if you partner with a doula to be by your side. You will have a better birth story and better memories of bringing your baby into this world. This has been proven countless times.
When I wrote this book, I had been practicing for fourteen years and my clients’ C-section rate remained in the single digits. While you can hire a doula at any point in your pregnancy; the earlier the better. My clients typically hire me around their third month of pregnancy. Then we get to spend the next six months building a relationship.
When you are being constantly rotated and meeting new providers each week, completely unsure of who will deliver you, I am your constant. You know I am on your team and will be at your birth. Together we prepare for your childbirth, we make a birth plan, we work through your birth fears, and we practice labor positions.
We become friends. I’m on call 100% of the time for your labor, answering texts and calls from the moment you hire me. We chat about how your provider appointments go. I support you in navigating your relationships at the end of your pregnancy.
If anything out of the ordinary happens, you call your provider first and then me immediately after for comfort and direction. I like spending 2 a.m. with you while you are waiting for your doctor or midwife to call you back. In the weeks leading up to labor, I visit with you and help get your body comfortable. I send you for a massage. I make you a custom essential oil blend. I hold you, I massage you. I help show your partner how to make your body feel comfortable as the pregnancy comes to an end. I cheer you on and calm you down.
Then, when those early signs of labor start and you are uncertain or afraid, you call me. I help comfort and direct you. We talk about what is normal and what might not be so normal. I arrive at your home in the middle of the night and help coordinate dogs and other children and in-laws and keeping everyone else calm.
I am the protector of your environment and your peace. I help you find you inner strength, and I guide you in the labor. I listen to your body and where you are feeling pains. My hands are my tools. I deploy things like the rebozo to help facilitate the best possible labor positioning for you. If the pains are on your back and your provider believes your baby is ill positioned, I consider your birthing positions to help. I am looking and listening and then I move you to your hands and knees, side-lying, or use pillows and peanut balls to help your baby wiggle off those nerves. I help you guide your baby down by supporting your squats, taking a walk with you, drawing your bath, rubbing your feet.
I have been trained through almost two decades of experience to listen to the sounds of labor and the signs of the progression of active labor. When you are ready, I follow you to the hospital, or I’m waiting when you arrive.
Once we are at the hospital, I hold you and place lavender cloths on your forehead and ice chips in your mouth. I push on your hips and sacrum. I support you as you communicate your birth plan to the hospital team. I help you to advocate for your body. I constantly have a hand on you and lead your partner on how to comfort you. If you sleep, I organize the room and get food for your partner.
We have prepared for the birth you want. Sometimes that is a completely unmedicated birth; sometimes you just want to get as far as you can before narcotics, nitrous oxide, or epidural anesthesia. Sometimes you want to avoid a C-section. One hundred percent of the time you just want to walk out of the hospital healthy with a healthy baby.
I am there, quietly participating as a guiding light and reminding you of your strength if you forget. If the time comes for a medical intervention, like an epidural, I am there to walk you through it and to hold your hand. I will help you get through the contractions you are having as you are asked to stay still for the epidural to be placed. I remind you that you are a warrior, and you didn’t give up, and you didn’t fail. You did what you wanted for your body, and I fully support your decisions. I help you love your birth story even if it alters from your birth plan.
None of this is medical. Doulas are not medical professionals; we are women servants. Girl, you need both. I am desperately needed and deserved by you. You deserve emotional and physical support and medical support together as one team.
If you continue for an all-natural birth, I rise with you. I guide you visually and spiritually. I coach you. I am firm when you need it and soft when you need that. I hold you and breathe with you and show your partner exactly what to do to help you keep going. And when transition hits, I hold your hair as you vomit, and I clean it up. When you say, “I just can’t do it anymore,” I know you are near the end and I position your body and squeeze your hips to relieve some of the pain. I remind you that you were born to do this.
You are a goddess and all women who have come before you are cheering you on. I fight for you because that is what you hired me to do. And when your baby emerges from the birthing position you desired; we cry tears of joy together. I help you to nurse, and I protect the cord from being cut until it stops pulsating. I honor the third stage of labor and the gentle delivery and protection of your placenta.
I cover you up in warm blankets, and then I take photos and watch you and your partner bond with your new baby. I help you to establish breastfeeding and guide you through that first latch.
I dance with your nurses, allowing them the space to do all they need to do to care for you. And then I leave. My job is done for now and your sweet family needs to be alone.
Every mom deserves a doula. Every mom deserves to have your “woman servant” to prepare you for childbirth and to walk you through every single minute of your labor and delivery. Doulas are not just for women who have natural childbirths, and I hope this book will put an end to that misconception. You can call me and say, “I want all of this support, and I want an epidural too.” Or “I want all of this support and my baby is breech and I am OK with the C-section that is being suggested. I’d like your help in preparing for this new birth story.”
Helen Herzig from Aussie Doula says, “Having a doula is like a warm blanket on a cold night, an experienced guide walking alongside you on the journey of birth and someone who can interpret your needs before you can express them.”
I am also a big fan of midwives. It is important to me that you hear from my own personal midwife.
“I would encourage all [low risk] women to consider using a midwife to attend their birth. Our training is geared to empower the woman to have the best birth experience she can, whether it be a nonmedicated birth, a birth with an epidural, or a labor using other pain-management devices or medications. We try to honor what is best for the individual mother and her partner and to support them with the goal of having the best outcome for mother and baby both. To attend a birth is to attend a miracle—such a privilege! As a midwife for over thirty-four years, I have witnessed some of the most incredible births and met some of the most powerful women and supportive partners.” - Sage Brook, CNM, on using a midwife
As I hold your birth story in my heart, all is right in the world.
Thank you for letting me help you on your journey to motherhood.