What is a Doula?

A Doula...

• Is a trusted woman providing continuous care from the prenatal through to the postpartum period.
• Provides emotional support, reassurance and physical comfort measures to the labouring woman with no breaks.
• Assists partners to participate at their own comfort level, in ways that help the labouring woman.
• Provides information to aid decision making.
• Facilitates communication between the women, her partner and health care providers.

Partners are often concerned that a Doula will somehow replace them. If your partner is your right hand in labour, then your Doula is your left
-Jill Simpson They quickly find out, however, that the Doula helps enrich their role by supporting them and helping them to participate at their own comfort level. The Doula provides experience, knowledge, guidance, reassurance and helps create fond birth memories.

Training and Education

The Kootenay Doulas are women with a diverse range of education and life skills. All of them have formal training as a Doula and draw from their experience in related fields. They all have a sincere interest and commitment to work with women and childbearing families. All of the Doulas referred through the Kootenay Doula Group have read and agreed to the Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics of Doulas of North America (DONA).

As a doula group we like to meet monthly. We find this helps to bring us together as a stronger unit.

During meetings we share in discussions around upcoming births, The presence of a Doula is a major advantage for physicians, the women and their families. They provide a level of support that is often very difficult to achieve in a busy maternity care service. We see increased satisfaction with the birth experience, lower intervention rates and excellent infant outcomes.
- Dr. Michael Klein births attended, new books or videos, concerns and ideas. Brainstorming ideas to raise public awareness around what role a doula can play in a woman's or couple's birth is very important to us. Sharing all the positive atributes that a doula contributes with medical professionals, families, and the expecting are also a priority for us. Finally, our monthly meeting are geared towards determining how we can provide support for women, their partners, and each other.