Nursery World - Health & Well-Being: Mother care

How doulas are providing valuable support to women in Bradford. By Meredith Jones Russell

Doulas provide emotional and practical support during pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period. According to Doula UK, ‘While doulas are not there to change outcomes, there is growing evidence that having a birth or postnatal doula brings a number of tangible benefits, from reducing intervention rates to shortening labour and improving the condition of babies at birth.’ Other benefits include an increased likelihood of successful breastfeeding and lower rates of postnatal depression.

Emily Bray, a doula in Bristol and Cornwall, says doula support, or ‘mothering the mother’, can be vital in today’s society. ‘Women have supported women having babies since the beginning of time,’ she says. ‘The community surrounding a woman, their “village”, would come together to give hands-on help and emotional support. Today, we are living differently; often working longer hours, having children later and with more opportunity to live in different places. A result may be a loss of that “village”. The doula community helps women find it again.’

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