“… how grateful I was for you being at my side through my birth. You helped me so much and brought me a calm and positive energy that I really needed. You really helped my spirit through all of the pain I was experiencing and I can’t thank you enough.”
— Kaua Labo
Support for Families
While a Midwife and Doula will often work together on the same birth team, and some individuals offer both services, it is important to know that they are not one and the same or interchangeable.
Midwife is keeper of the sacred birth space. She makes sure that the many threads which comprise the birth journey weave together smoothly in their perfect composition. Like a doctor, the midwife agrees to share responsibility for the safety of mother and child throughout the process. She pays keen attention to the birth’s unfolding and witnesses that it remains within the realms of normal. It is her charge to recognize when anything shifts out of the range of normal and to know how to respond appropriately. A home birth midwife serves the mother in the capacity that a doctor or nurse midwife would in the hospital.
Where Obstetricians are trained to focus on looking for problems and acting preemptively, The Midwives Model of Care™ is based on the fact that pregnancy and birth are normal life events.
Studies show that planned home birth with a midwife is a safe choice for low risk pregnant people https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24479690/
Doula is the companion who agrees to enter the sacred birth space with the mother, lending physical, emotional, mental and spiritual support continuously throughout the process. Often a friend or family member is called upon to fill this role. A professional doula brings experience, which lends confidence to the process. It also provides a cache of tools and techniques which have been proven to help a mother navigate the birth process. Doulas have emotional perspective which allows them to step in when advocacy is needed so that loved ones are able to continue to experience the birth as their own life changing event without compromising support to the birthing person. Doulas work alongside a doctor or midwife as an additional support person for the mother. They can be present in a home birth, hospital or birth center.
Studies show that doulas improve birth outcomes https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3647727/