Benefits of a Postpartum Doula

We so often dream of what life will look like with our newborn finally in our arms. The time after delivery is often romanticized as a calm and magical time in our life as a parent, portraying it as the easy part of parenthood. However, this idealistic fantasy is far from the reality most families experience. It does not matter whether or not it is your first or 4th time giving birth, when you enter the postpartum period you face a litany of challenges that affect every part of your life. This can be quite overwhelming and at some point, you will find yourself in need of a break that you can’t seem to catch. There will be many times where you find yourself wishing you had more guidance, knowledge, and assistance with different aspects of your new role.

But what if you didn’t have to go through any of this? What if I told you that you have access to highly-trained professionals whose sole purpose is to make your postpartum period as magical as you hoped it would be? A postpartum doula provides non-medical support in the time following delivery and aids in the adjustment of having a new baby in the family. They offer informational, emotional, and physical support for both the life-giver and their family, as a (non-clinical) infant care.

Now, let’s take a closer look at the services that postpartum doulas have to offer your family. Emotionally a postpartum doula will provide care in ways that help the life-giver to feel cared for, confident, and empowered in their new role as a parent. It is one of the postpartum doula’s primary objectives to provide care for the life giver’s emotional health as well as that of their family, thus enhancing their ability to create positive memories of their first weeks with their new baby. This is accomplished by offering reassurance, praise, compassion, affirmation, empathy, active listening, positive communication, help sorting through fears and self-doubts, advocacy, understanding, supporting decisions, and meeting families where they are. Receiving this assistance plays a crucial role in smooth adjustment and in some cases the prevention of postpartum mental illnesses.

The physical support provided by a postpartum doula can look like a doula prepping and cooking meals for the family, light housework, organization of the nursery, tidying up living spaces, infant care, driving to the store to shop for you, childcare for older siblings, keeping spaces safe and babyproofed, preparing and sterilizing of bottles, enabling moments for the life-giver and/or partner to nap/self-care/take a break, and helping to establish routines and transition back into your “normal” life. These services allow parents to sit back, relax, and focus on bonding with their newborn in ways that may have been inhibited by otherwise unavoidable life tasks.

One of the most important roles a postpartum doula takes on is that of an informer. Doulas educate clients on not only newborn care but also how to keep a household running with the addition of a newborn, postpartum emotional/mental health, their postpartum body and how to care for it, breastfeeding and the pros and cons of alternative feeding methods, helping to keep partner/family members informed on postpartum life, nutrition in postpartum recovery, knowledge as to when to call in medical professionals for either the life-giver or baby, and facilitating a space in which questions can be asked, and evidence-based information can be obtained. These support methods provide parents the opportunity to make informed decisions as to what will be best for their family.

Some studies have shown that families experience greater satisfaction of their overall postpartum period, quality sleep, better nutrition, decrease in postpartum mood disorders, better bonding between partners as parents, better bonding with baby, more successful breastfeeding experience, quicker physical postpartum recovery, and overall less stress. In such ways, a postpartum doula offers services that saturate your home with peace, tranquility, comfort, and stability. Many life-givers who have hired doulas in the past have expressed that they received professional and unconditional care free of judgment or bias that they may have experienced from other caregivers, friends, or family. This can be important when you need simple, customized care, with no history or emotional bonds attached. Overall a postpartum doula is there to serve you and help meet your needs, creating a catered approach to care unlike any other. Thye will be there punctually for whatever you might need, whether it’s a household task or a shoulder to cry on, a Doula is equipped for the job. This quality of care is a true gamechanger and serves to rewrite the narrative of pain that has been slathered over the beautiful experience that is newfound parenthood for too long. Postpartum doulas continue to change postpartum experiences everywhere, changing family experiences for the better and blessing the world.