A Doula ~ A Difference
 More frequently than not, adequate emotional nurturing for the laboring woman is not routinely provided by mainstream medical caregivers. Doctors have separate concerns requiring medical expertise that take precedence over providing constant emotional support. As a result, women are too often encouraged to accept induction of labor, epidural pain relief, episiotomy, or other unnecessary medical intervention "to speed labor along," rather than offered encouragement to value their own inherent process and power to give birth naturally.
The Presence of a doula has proven to substantially reduce the:
- need for a cesarean by 50%
- length of labor by 25%
- use of oxytocin by 40%
- use of pain medication by 30%
- the need for forceps by 40% and
- requests for epidurals by 60%
*Supporting research studies on the effect of doula support are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine. |
