6 Rad Reasons to Get a Doula

We can actually think of about 106 rad reasons to get a doula. Some of them include things like:

* Doulas will totally run to get you Mexican food in the middle of the night after you awesomely birth your baby after 36 hours of crazy-hard labor.

* Your Doula might be the only person you ever know that will see crevices on your body that you can't even view yourself. And we aren't telling anyone, pinky promise. You're welcome.

* Doulas can multi-task like nobody's business, with the simultaneous hip squeeze, breath coaching and head nod for Dad to grab you some water.

However, what we really wanted to bring up again was the fantastic statistics that belong to the Cochrane Review of 2012, illustrating the evidence for doulas. I was reminded of this today while I was spending time on the supremely interesting and accurate resource, Evidence Based Birth by the birth dedicated researcher, Rebecca Dekker.

Just a quick shout out to Evidence Based Birth: if you haven't combed through this site yet, you are missing out. It's one of our very favorite places to get non-biased, fact-based information about pregnancy and birth practices as it relates to maternity care. Both providers and parents find it to be a helpful resource that is easy to navigate and a wealth of information.

And even though we celebrated it 4 years ago when it first arrived, we want to keep the party going!

Check out again these 6 Rad Reasons to Get a Doula:

There are no other protocols in place in hospital-based care that can promise statistics like these! Decreased use of Pitocin, C sections, pain medications, newborn complications, and birth dissatisfaction. WOW. And not just a decrease in interventions were measured but an increase in spontaneous vaginal births, which we know 99% of pregnant moms are setting their sights on.

So why after 4 years does this information still excite us?

Because we still don't have a doula at 100% of births in San Diego. What can we do to increase the number of births being supported by doulas here and across the US? The biggest barrier to doula support is education. Many people don't understand what a doula is and just how practical one can be to their birth preparation and labor.

Who do you know that you can share these statistics with? Let's keep celebrating the great evidence we have for doulas!

#TiffanyAlblinger #doula #reasonsforadoula #evidenceforadoula #doulaevidence #hospitalbirth