Deanne wrote:
>Not all doctors and nurses are unfeeling professionals who are incapable of
>functioning as 'doulas'.

Okay, I'm with you on the first part: Not all doctors and nurses are
unfeeling professionals. But whether they're capable of functioning as
doulas is another matter entirely. Perhaps they're *capable* (a few of them,
anyway, though none that I personally know), but can they do their jobs as
doctors and nurses *and* function as doulas?

The doula's role is to mother the mother. How many doctors and nurses
would do the things my doula did at my daughter's birth:

- Visit with me several times prior to the birth, not examining me, but
getting to know me and my family, offering empowering alternatives, learning
about who I was and what my feelings and fears about birth and the
postpartum period, and helping me write my birth plan as an advocate of
*me*?
- Be with me every moment from the time I was in labor, talking to me,
offering gentle encouragement in the *precise* fashion I needed (which she
could do so well because she had listened so closely to me in the weeks and
months before), running interference, changing music, getting cold washrags
and putting them just where I needed them on the back of my neck, helping
direct the shower spray onto my lower back, making sure my mother and son
were doing okay with their own fears, ...?
- Stay with me for two hours after I'd given birth, again listening to me,
helping me to process the enormity of the experience, and talking with all
the members of my family?
- Speak with me on the phone several times over the next weeks, offering
support and encouragement with breastfeeding while I was having major
problems?
- Come to my home the following week with flowers for me, a gift for my son,
and a written account of my daughter's birth?

I find it extremely hard to believe that any doctor or nurse could give that
kind of gentle mothering and perform the other duties of his or her job.

Janice Berry, mom of Zack (11/30/92) and Gina (9/4/96) -- both born in
hospitals, one with a doula ... and what a remarkable difference!
Westerville, OH
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