Hi! I'm so glad you found my site, and congratulations on your pregnancy! Feel free to look around, ask questions, and learn more about doulas. My name is Kimberly Henderson and I am a young woman who is a doula, a gardener/farmer, a nanny, an actvist, and a student of midwifery. As a person who has always been interested in the organic processes of life, I've been fascinated by birth for a very long time. I started reading about birth at the age of twelve, and started attending births at twenty three after attending a DONA doula training in Ithaca, NY. At the first birth I attended, I met some Rochester midwives, and I quickly realized I wanted to become a midwife.
I attended midwifery school in Portland, OR for three years. The midwifery school I attended, Birthingway College of Midwifery, taught me a lot and was very exciting, but in the process I realized I wanted to practice midwifery back on the East Coast, close to my family. So now I'm back in New York, looking forward to becoming a certified DONA International doula and helping lots of families have enjoyable and healthy births!
Contact info
1) home phone: 607-522-5674
2) cell phone: 503-863-7568
3) Address: 11038 County Route 122, Prattsburgh, NY 14873-9774
4) e-mail: kimhendersondoula@gmail.com
What is a doula?
Doula is an ancient Greek word which means "woman's servart." In today's world, a doula is a person (most often a woman,) who helps a family through the last weeks of pregnancy, labor and birth, as well as a little bit into the postpartum period. She meets with the expectant family a few times before the birth, to teach them what to expect during labor and birth, and to help the family make a birth plan, if they want, and also to learn comfort measures they can use to help the woman during labor and birth. Then, the doula accompanies the family in the home, if they wish, during early labor, then in the hospital later, during the rest of her labor and birth.
Afterwards, the doula will visit the family a few more times to be sure that everything is going smoothly with the mother, baby, father and other family members, that the baby is nursing ok, and reviews the birth with the family at this point. The doula is prepared with a list of community resources if the family needs referrals to anyone, such as a lactation consultant, WIC, nannies, pediatricians, and so forth.
What comfort measures do I as a doula, offer?
There are numerous non-pharmaceutical techniques that I, as a doula, have been trained to do, which can lessen pain, and increase a sense of well-being, during labor. Below is a list of comfort measures that I employ to make the mother (and baby,) more comfortable:
- Comforting touch
- Positions which help the baby move into a good position to be born, and relieve pain
- Aromatherapy
- Visualization techniques
- The reassurance of having a support person always there, since doctors, midwives and nurses are often busy with other clients, and can't support you through the entire labor and birth (fathers often mention to doulas after the birth that they thought they where "being replaced" by the doula, but the doula actually helped them be there more for the mother, since they weren't so stressed with an overwhelming task, and feel grateful for the doulas presence.)
- Affirmations
- Acupressure points
- Hydrotherapy
Do studies suggest that using a doula during labor is really helpful?
Many studies have been done starting in the early eighties, to see if an extra support person at the time of birth is really helpful. The overwhelming result of the research is that, yes, it is helpful to have a doula. Most studies suggest that doulas not only shorten the length of labor, but they decrease the need for pain medications, including the epidural, they decrease the chance of a mother getting a C-section, they decrease other interventions, such as forceps, vacuum extractors, etc, they increase a family's overall satisfaction with the birth experience, and they increase a mother's feeling that she was empowered by her birth! This, in turn, has the effect of making a more confident mother, who has more success breastfeeding, lower rates of postpartum depression, and more satisfaction with her newborn. In short, hiring a doula can have a profound and long-term, lasting effect on the entire family!
http://www.dona.org/resources/research.php
http://www.palsdoulas.org/what-is-a-doula/doula-research/
