Patricia - I went to a seminar with Marshall Klaus of bonding
fame and was overwhelmed by references on how doulas shorten
labor, and reduce need for pain medication. I sat next to a
midwife from my hospital, which is a baby factory delivering over
10,000 babies a year, 8 beds in delivery room....a midwifely
nightmare is getting the sheets on the beds changed before some
woman delivers in the labor room (or the corridor, for that
matter). This midwife was practically drooling at the thought of
making labors significantly shorter with doulas. I thought of
presenting the idea of a course for doulas at the nursing school,
as an option for fulfilling a student nurse work requirement in
OB, but was told it isn't practical. In other words, a doula
would be provided to a birthing woman BY THE HOSPITAL instead of,
as an alternative to, narcotics and epidural. A woman who opted
for epidural would not get a doula. And I figure that a good
doula would be able to convince a woman that she did not need
narcotics.
I understand that at Jerusalem's Misgav Ladach maternity
hospital, women are allowed to hire and have doulas with them in
labor, and that this is fairly popular. My hospital, of course,
would automatically say to an "outside" doula that there is no
room for her (and they'd be right, in a way, unless she would be
part of the HOSPITAL STAFF......) Honestly, sometimes I'm so
devious that it's beautiful. Dream on.... Judy Knopf in Beer
Sheva, Israel