Birth doulas or postpartum doulas?

Piperella · June 2016

I'm not planning a natural birth, but I was still interested in potentially having a doula around for my birth since I'm a FTM. I'm also strongly considering hiring a postpartum doula as my husband does not have any paternity leave and he just started a new job. I also have three cats and two dogs in the house, so it'd be nice to have another pair of hands and eyes around. My mom lives a good distance away and she also has two dogs, so even if she did come to help, I think the amount of animals could cause me more stress than not. Any BTDT moms have a birth or postpartum doula? Anyone else considering (or already hired) a doula?

Schell2013 · June 2016

I couldn't afford a doula since there is not very many here they are high demand and therefore expensive. I'm hiring a house keeper for a month due to the high possibility for a RCS if my VBAC doesn't happen. No doulas though. If there was student ones or new ones that were less expensive I would regardless of my birth but it's not in the cards for us, and since you only have one baby and don't have to lift other children too a post partum doula may not be as helpful as someone who has a lot of kids. They do help with things like breastfeeding and stuff like that but it just depends on the family. I would say yes to a birth doula and a house keeper instead of a post partum one. That is just me though.

Piperella · June 2016

The housekeeper is a great alternative to think about as well. Thank you for the suggestion, @Schell2013.

Sprinkels28 · June 2016

I started a thread on this a while back if you do a search. You may get more responses.

To answer your question, I am a FTM and I have a doula hired who we meet with every 10 weeks to discuss plans, questions, support. She also provides postpartum help as well. I am very happy SO agreed to hire her and the extra expense.

kathleenkat · June 2016

I'm hiring a doula, and also not considering a natural birth. My doula also does prenatal and post partum sessions. I have never heard of a Doula coming to the house for an extended period of time to help with a baby, in lieu of the father or other help, though. I could be wrong because I'm a FTM too but I don't think you can hire a Doula for a second set of eyes. My post partum session will be all about breastfeeding and recovery. I think that what you are seeking would be a nanny.

Piperella · June 2016

@kathleenkat I understand what you areare sayingsaying, but when reviewing the services of two I am considering for postpartum offer services like I mentioned. They do light housekeeping, laundry, food prep, feed the baby or help me with breastfeeding, etc. There are lots of options and each doula offers something different.

JaJuanY · June 2016

I've hired a doula already, I'm not sure if I'll be able to do a natural birth, but I want to keep it intervention free as possible. Mine does a couple of prenatal visits, the birth, and one post partum visit. I've read good things about how having a doula can decrease the risk of c-section, labor augmentation, etc., although I think there are a multitude of factors in play there and don't think it can be credited entirely to having a doula.

vcabbyw · June 2016

STM here. First birth was long and I didn't hire any doula or help. Wish I would of had help at home during labor.

This time around I have a birth doula. Then I am paying someone to come to my house while I'm in the hospital to stay with my animals, watch over my house and deep clean. She is flexible for staying longer incase. It will be less stressful for everyone, my dogs are kind of jerks. But I have help from close family and friends for other emergency issues too.

I also have a fabulous lactation consultant ready incase I have breastfeeding issues. She's out of pocket from my insurance. Last time I took a class, read a lot, watched you tube videos and didn't have issues. I didn't need her last time.

If I had more money, I would absolutely be hiring a house cleaner to come weekly for the first month or two. I had so many freaking guests come and not offer to help, that it was stressful to me that my house was wrecked constantly. But thats a personal issue, I can't rest if I have a sink full of dishes. My husband tried hard, bless him, but we have two different ideas of clean.

So I would suggest talking this out with your mom, and husband on your needs and expectations. See what is truely necessary, and some back up plans if you stay longer in the hospital, c section, etc.

lickastick · June 2016

Lurking lurkerson
There are absolutely post partum doulas, we have actually interview a few. Here in California they charge around $30 and hour so they are pretty spendy, but if you hire them for days-weeks it must be cheaper. They can act as a night nurse or come during the day. It might indeed be cheaper to get cleaners come but they won't do baby stuff or things for you.

I was my sisters post partum doula and I did things like feed her before she asked, always kept her water glass full, prepared her sitz bath, fetched/handed her things while she nursed, made sure she took her medication on time, did laundry, cooked and much more. My mom was there too but she just wanted to hold the baby. I rarely held the baby and put all my focus on my sister. Her husband was too frazzled to be of much help and he did a lot of baby tending things like changing diapers. If you breastfeed you'll be tied to one spot pretty much all the time for the first little while, I could imagine with no one there to feed you or do other things it might be hard to get YOU taken care of! But lots of mom's have done it so it is possible to get by without help, but at least for the first couple of weeks it can be the difference of keeping your sanity and helping you recover faster to have someone there to take care of you.

emt87 · June 2016

FTM mom here, we have hired a doula that will be there for the birth, and also providing postpartum services. We will have 7 hours of postpartum time that are already paid for, and then will be adding time as needed once baby is home and we find out how much help we really need. When choosing a doula it was actually really important to me that we hired someone that offers both birth and postpartum services. She will be available to help us with things around the house, give advice/support for breastfeeding and taking care of baby, running errands, or even doing some light cleaning around the house. Knowing that I will have that extra support makes me feel a little better about those first few weeks at home, especially since while some of our family is close (1.5 hours away), they are not in town and will not be able to just come over all the time to help out.

maysmiles · June 2016

You will not be disappointed in your decision to hire a doula, for the birth, postpartum or both. I had a doula at the birth with my son and she was worth every penny. She kept my husband calm, made suggestions to make me more comfortable and did little errands here and there that were lifesavers (like getting me mashed potatoes (all I wanted after a day of not eating) at midnight right after DS was born!). The research on doulas is very positive. Just the emotional support for mom leads to better birth outcomes- it's very interesting. Even if natural birth isnt your goal, having a trained birth professional that is there for you and your partner is priceless. I wish I had had a postpartum doula. Our families live on the opposite coast from us and the first few weeks when I was struggling with nursing, it would have been nice to have an extra set of hands around. Good luck!

Piperella · June 2016

I appreciate everyone's input. This is certainly help me in making decisions and deciding what factors I really need to prioritize. I hope it helps others as well that may be considering a doula. I'm hoping to have as stress free birth and the weeks afterwards to be as well.

aesthyerin · June 2016

Stm here and while my birth was pretty easy last time for some reason I'm overthinking everything so I hired a birth doula. I do plan on having another non med birth. A friend of mine is a postpartum doula. I honestly never knew they existed until I talked to her about it a few weeks ago!

NoraAurora · June 2016

I just looked up PP doulas in my town. I need.

simcal18 · June 2016

I keep thinking more and more about hiring a birth doula. While I am incredibly grateful for modern medicine and the most important thing to me is that baby and I come out of the birth healthy, all things being equal, I would like to try for minimal intervention. I also think that hospitals tend to push for more intervention that I'd be comfortable with (assuming a healthy, normal labor), and while I'm a lawyer (and was a litigator for quite a few years), I'm not sure I'm going to be in a position to advocate for myself and my preferences. I don't want to put my husband in that position either -- I'd rather he be able to focus on me and being present for the birth, and I do think it would be beneficial to have somebody there who is experienced and can help us decide when to stay on track with our minimally interventionist plan and when to go off-plan if it isn't working or if I and/or baby are at risk.

I've been hesitant to hire one because doulas are not cheap, and I feel like I don't want to make "too much fuss" over my birth plan -- again, the most important thing to me is that at the end baby and I are healthy. But I just have this feeling that if I don't hire one, I will wind up feeling like I was pushed around during labor/birth or wasn't able to effectively speak up for my choices. I don't like that feeling, and I suspect it would be even worse when combined with immediate post-birth hormones/emotions/newborn care, so I'm thinking the money may be well worth it to have some extra peace of mind.

coffee89 · June 2016

I gave thought to a doula because I'm a VBAC but decided against it. I'm totally for doulas though. Basically I'm happy with my midwives approach to labor and how involved they will be, and if I end up getting bumped to an OB then I'll be a repeat c-sec so it wouldn't do me any good then. If I didn't feel like I would have a midwife helping me along and checking in with me very often during labor then I would probably still be looking into one.

I will say that while my OB with DS was an amazing doctor, I was not very pleased with his hospital presence (or complete lack of) and he was very pro c-sec after 12 hours of labor which made the rest of my 20 hour labor hard. I wish I had someone there to help me articulate my wants because DH couldn't or did not know what I needed and I was so exhausted from 20 hours of ineffective contractions 1 minute apart that I couldn't labor anymore.

depineta · June 2016

@simcal18 we're in a very similar boat - my husband and I are both lawyers but I still think we would be too deferential and uncomfortable advocating for ourselves in a stressful (and completely new) situation. I'm not hyper focused on a particular birth plan, I'm just hoping a doula will help to make it a better experience than it would be otherwise. We're interviewing a very promising woman on July 2, and I'm feeling increasingly comfortable with my decision. Good luck!

Chcaggie1 · June 2016

I stumbled across a post partum doula's website today (while researching prenatal chiropractors of all things) and saved her info. We will have a 21 mo old when dd arrives so we will definitely need help. I anticipate my mom being here to help us as she was the last time but just incase something comes up I want to have this doulas info to contact her. Plus it seems like a bonus that she can clean, cook, help with ds, answer questions about dd AND assist me with any breastfeeding issues.

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