Doula

OBJECTIVE: Childbirth is a life-changing experience for new mothers, birth partners, and families. The COVID-19 pandemic restricted laboring mothers' access to support in hospitals through visitor restrictions. The goal of this research was to describe childbirth support in hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: A qualitative study using a multiple case study design describes childbirth support in hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspectives of the new mother, birth partner, and obstetric hospital staff, including doulas, nurses, and obstetric providers...

New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 389, Issue 26, Page 2405-2407, December 2023.

OBJECTIVE: To assess obstetric clinicians' and leaders' baseline knowledge, attitudes, and experience with doulas and their readiness to implement a novel doula-hospital partnership program. DESIGN: Survey of obstetric clinicians and leaders before implementation of the doula program. SETTING/LOCAL PROBLEM: Academic medical center in Western Massachusetts that was preparing to pilot a doula-hospital partnership program with Black doulas for Black women to address racial disparities in maternal morbidity and mortality...

Evidence suggests that perinatal doula care can support maternal health and reduce racial inequities among low-income pregnant and postpartum people, prompting growing interest by state Medicaid agencies to reimburse for doula services. Emerging peer-reviewed and gray literature document factors facilitating or impeding that reimbursement. We conducted a scoping review of that literature (2012-2022) to distill key policy considerations for policymakers and advocates in the inclusion of doula care as a Medicaid-covered benefit...

OBJECTIVES: In this systematic review, we aimed to identify the full extent of cost-effectiveness evidence available for evaluating alternative Maternity Models of Care (MMC) and to summarize findings narratively. METHODS: Articles that included a decision tree or state-based (Markov) model to explore the cost-effectiveness of an MMC, and at least one comparator MMC, were identified from a systematic literature review. The MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, CINAHL and Google Scholar databases were searched for papers published in English, Arabic, and French...

Immigrant women in the United States are at an elevated risk of poor maternal health outcomes due to cultural, linguistic, or socioeconomic barriers that may lead to critical delays in obtaining adequate health care. Ensuring access to high-quality, culturally appropriate perinatal health care is crucial to improve the health and well-being of immigrant mothers and their children. Various aspects of perinatal health care for immigrant women can be improved through community engagement strategies. Barriers can be addressed by involving community members in designing and delivering culturally appropriate maternal health services...

Engaging in dialogue with critical mothers, midwives, midwives in training, and doulas in the Netherlands, this study furthers the theoretical understanding of both obstetric violence and the activist resistance against it. Obstetric violence is understood as part of a process of relational separation, leaving the pregnant person isolated. The activist resistance against it is consequently theorized as the abolitionist building of an alternative "otherworld" of radical relational care. The themes established are: (1) "institutionalized separation" with the subtheme's "expropriation," "carcerality," and "obstetric violence;" and (2) "undercommoning childbirth" with subthemes "fugitive planning," "anarchic relationality," and "obstetric abolition...

OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between the use of virtual doula appointments on a comprehensive digital health platform and users' mode of birth and their birth experiences, among all platform users and Black platform users. METHODS: Data for this retrospective cohort study were extracted from individuals who enrolled in a comprehensive digital health platform, between January 1, 2020, and April 22, 2023. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to estimate the association between number of virtual doula appointments completed on the digital health platform and odds of cesarean birth and user-reported birth experience outcomes, which included help deciding a birth preference, receiving a high level of support during pregnancy, learning medically accurate information about pregnancy complications and warning signs, and managing mental health during pregnancy, stratified by parity...

While publications that aim to reflect the parent perspective are increasingly common in the medical literature, few are authored by parents in their own words. As mothers with lived and professional experience in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), we believe this perspective is vital to improving health outcomes. We are writing from a life course health development framework that regards health as an active process that develops over time with the integration of physical, social, emotional, and relational components...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Doula care improves maternal care, yet barriers exist to incorporating doula care. The purpose of this study was to evaluate interest and barriers to doula care. Overall, 508 women, 26-35 years of age (54.5%), White/Caucasian (89.8%), and married (88.6%), completed this study. Most reported ≥1 previous birth (97.6%). Respondents would "feel comfortable" (73.2%) and "more confident" (54.9%) with doula care at birth, and 57.9% reported their provider would be supportive of doula care. Only 39.0% expressed benefits to doula care during pregnancy compared to 72...

Many newly postpartum women and birthing people are sent home from the hospital with their newborn babies, ill-prepared to care for themselves with little to no capacity to learn about newborn care and parenting. Women are often left to fend for themselves in the "black hole" of health care in 6 weeks post-birth that the United States calls postpartum care. Postpartum doulas can be the first line of defense, helping people identify potential postpartum physical and mental health issues, and in many places, they are doing it on the front lines and in the homes of newly postpartum women and families...

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate the impact of traditional Chinese medicine analgesic-assisted delivery patches on doula-assisted childbirth. METHODS: We conducted a comparative analysis of two groups of puerperae. The control group consisted of 120 individuals who underwent routine delivery at Haian Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine between May 2019 and May 2020. The observation group included 120 puerperae who gave birth between June 2020 and June 2021, and they utilized Chinese medicine analgesic and childbirth-assisting patches in combination with doula-assisted childbirth...

BACKGROUND: There has been an emerging trend of adopting a death doula, a non-medical advocate and guide for people at the end of life and their families. While there has been growing empirical research regarding the work of death doulas, no studies have been undertaken with the families who have engaged them. OBJECTIVES: To understand the experiences of families who used a death doula in terms of what they did for the patient and family; to understand the benefits and drawbacks of using a death doula; and to use family insight to determine cultural shifts towards death and dying, and what the death doula phenomenon tells us around our attitudes towards death and dying...

OBJECTIVES: Doulas are a potential resource for addressing substance use and mental health challenges that pregnant and postpartum individuals experience. We sought to review peer-reviewed literature that examines Doulas' role in addressing these challenges to highlight the need for more research in this area. METHODS: We conducted a scoping review (2001-2021) to identify articles that examine the way in which Doulas address maternal substance use and mental health challenges in their clients...

PURPOSE: Maternal substance use and deaths due to overdoses have been increasing locally and nationally. Evidence suggests there are increased rates of relapse, and increased rates of both fatal and non-fatal overdose in the first year after birth, particularly around six months postpartum. Doula care has been linked to improvements in perinatal outcomes but the impact of doula care on population of birthing people with substance use disorder is unknown. DESCRIPTION: In response to the opioid epidemic, a City Health Department developed and implemented a doula support program with a focus on 1-year of postpartum care for birthing people with substance use disorder (SUD)...

OBJECTIVE: To determine how a combination of auricular acupuncture, acupoint application and the Doula instrument affects numerical rating scale (NRS) scores, labour time of puerperae and the Apgar scores of newborns during natural delivery. METHODS: This is a retrospective study. From January 2021 to December 2022, clinical data were collected from 90 healthy primiparae who completed natural delivery at Baoding Maternal and Child Health Hospital. They were divided into two groups based on different perinatal intervention methods...

CONTEXT: Women, transgender men, and gender non-binary individuals who gave birth during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic experienced strict visitor restrictions that significantly disrupted their support networks. This study sought to examine women's perceptions and experiences of solitary support, particularly from male partners, during labor and delivery. METHODS: From April 2020 through August 2021, I conducted in-depth interviews with women who had given birth in the previous 12 months in the state of Ohio...

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to compare maternal and neonatal outcomes in the care provided by Doula, trained lay companion, and routine midwifery care in the labor and obstetric units. In this study, only results related to maternal outcomes were presented. METHOD: This is a quasi-experimental study, which was conducted on 150 women with low-risk pregnancies who had been selected for vaginal birth at private clinics and public hospitals of Arak, Iran...