Specialty care providers play a pivotal role in the maternity journey, rounding out the “maternity village” with targeted forms of care for specific needs. These specialty providers, including doulas, are growing increasingly popular in the maternity journey, especially from a benefits perspective. Walmart, among others, are including doula support in their maternity benefits offerings because they can drive better maternity outcomes, especially for vulnerable populations. Organizations of any size looking to improve outcomes for parents in their workplace should consider adding doulas, among other specialty providers, into their benefits ecosystem.
An abridged history of the doula
Although the role of a doula is speculated to be an ancient tradition, today they are trained and licensed professionals. And despite their reputation in pop culture as being exclusively used in lieu of trained healthcare providers for “natural births,” they often provide support as a part of a broader, community-oriented care team, through things like breathing exercises, pain management techniques, peer-reviewed and clinically supported research, and more.
According to anthropological research, it has long been a tradition for a family member or close friend to accompany a woman during childbirth. The term doula, roughly translating to “servant” or “slave,” is derived from ancient Greek, according to the research of anthropologist Dana Raphael. And although the maternity journey has changed dramatically since the days of yore, the idea of bringing along a trusted non-clinician to aid in the birthing process has withstood the test of time.
Doulas, in an official sense, came into vogue in the late 1960s during the so-called “natural childbirth” movement, and were employed in a much different capacity than as a servant. In the 1980s, the organization that later became known as DONA became the first foundation to train and certify doulas, and is one of the leading organizations in the practice of being a doula to this day. As of 2012, 6% of birthing people in the U.S. used a doula.
According to CE Durfee, MSN, CNM, ARNP, CLC, CD(DONA), “doulas used to be called ‘labor coaches’ and I think there is still some truth to that. However, the partner of a family I worked with once described the doula's role as similar to a "birthy tour guide." A doula can tell growing families about the birth process, policies and procedural norms at their planned birthing location, and offer insight in addition to their birth support-specific expertise.”
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