A doula from Webster’s dictionary is defined as the following…

“a woman experienced in child birth who provides advice, information, emotional support, and physical comfort to a mother before, during, and just after childbirth.”

The word Doula in Greek means servant. So essentially a doula gives of herself to the betterment of a pregnant woman’s birthing experience, a doula is a human presence, a support with no other agenda than entirely focusing on the birthing mother and her needs.

Research has shown that with Doula’s present, the births are generally shorter and have fewer complications. They are proven to help by:

• 60% reduction in epidural requests
• 50% reduction in cesarean rates
• 40% reduction in oxytocin (pitocin) use
• 40% reduction in forceps delivery
• 30% reduction in pain medication use

“For women in labor much of the birth process is about permission: Feeling total permission to be themselves and feeling free to let down emotional and physical barriers and to release expectations – those yardsticks or measures of performance that women carry with them into the institutional environment. Feeling completely safe with another human being creates a kind of freedom that enables a woman to begin to test the limits of her own capacities and to experience capacities possibility not recognize before -or perhaps recognized but not risked. This freedom to be one’s true self produces feelings of empowerment, of creativity.”  Klaus, Kennel, Klaus: The Doula Book (PG.17)