Hi expectant dad,
I bet when your pregnant partner expressed she wanted a doula, your initial thoughts were why?
What’s wrong with just a midwife?
Is she saying I am not enough?
What if this woman takes over the birth experience and I feel useless?
I love working with dads. I often say I have the best feedback from fathers who were initially perhaps resistant or dubious.
I could talk to you about the evidence for doulas all day, how we reduce intervention rates, increase maternal satisfaction and breastfeeding success. But I want to explain to you what it LOOKS like when we work together.
Antenatally…
You can express your thoughts and concerns to me, I have no agenda, I just want what you want.
I can give you tools to navigate your choices within the healthcare system with confidence.
I can teach you the knowledge of calming and physically supporting your partner.
I can explain the way that birth works in ways that you understand.
During labour…
In the mad rush if you’re having a hospital birth, you don’t have to worry about your partner being left alone while you park the car or get the bags. I’ve got your back.
At a home birth, we can divide our roles beautifully as you perhaps fill a pool and I give soothing encouragement to your partner (or the other way around, it doesn’t matter)
I can fetch you drinks and remind you to use the toilet or go for meal breaks, because I know more than anybody how hard it is to be a birth partner.
We complement each other, you her intimate partner who she loves more than anybody and I with my birth wisdom, together we facilitate the hormones that release.
That familiar presence – I know you and your family more than anybody else in the room.
I will be your silent support as you advocate for your partner, my presence filling you with confidence that there is somebody on “your side”.
How to explain the sacred triangle of protection that occurs around a woman when we divide our attention to where it’s needed? The energy is palpable.
You use your strength for counter pressure and I my calming voice in your partner’s ear – or the other way around – again, it doesn’t matter…
I can reassure you everything is happening just as it should.
You can support your baby coming into the world with joy and confidence.
And if things don’t go exactly to plan you will feel reassured just knowing that I’m there for you both.
There is somebody to capture those beautiful first moments for you and holding that space so that you have nothing else to worry about that just getting to know your new baby.
Days after the birth, when perhaps you are unsure of the emotional state of your partner or why she is always crying… I will support and reassure you both and remind you what is needed at this time. We can recount our shared experience and the wonder that was your baby’s birth.
Together we make the perfect team.
