Being a Doula

[mdocfuture]

Does anyone have experience being a doula? Time commitment? How soon should you be able to be present at a labor? Do you need to be present the entire time? All 48hrs? What's the longest a woman can be in labor for? What's the average? Good experience prior to medical school? Good for medical school application? Is juggling part time school, part time work and being a doula doable?

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[Anastomoses]

I think this has to rank among weirdest jobs ever.

 

[gyngyn]

Doulas are on the border between labor coaches and alternative medicine practitioners. If you have a compelling reason to become a doula I will not talk you down but its relative value in a medical school application will be dependent on your interpretation of the experience.

 

[thisisansley]

Does anyone have experience being a doula? Time commitment? How soon should you be able to be present at a labor? Do you need to be present the entire time? All 48hrs? What's the longest a woman can be in labor for? What's the average? Good experience prior to medical school? Good for medical school application? Is juggling part time school, part time work and being a doula doable?

I have been a doula for 2 years and it has been a wonderful experience overall. The time commitment depends on how much you want to put into it. If things are really busy, I don't take on any clients (ie, I did one induction in the time I was studying for my mcat). Over the summer, I had 4-5 clients at once. It just depends who you decide to help.

You should absolutely show up by the onset of active labor (4cm), which is when most women show up at the hospital. Before that, some doulas go to the woman's house and help her labor there but because of HIPPA and the organizations I volunteer through I don't do home visits. Labor is sooo variable so I can't really give you any hard and fast rules except that I tell my clients to let me know when they start having contractions to give me a heads up and I leave as soon as they head to hospital. Then I stay at the hospital until they give birth. So yes, I'm present the entire time. Again, labor is totally variable depending on the woman so there's no length I can give you. Most first time moms labor for 10-20 hours, although I had one go up to 30. It is hard work and you'll be starving and sleep deprived by the end but if you're passionate about it I say go for it. If you're just doing it to check a box, though, there are wayyyy easier ways to get experience.

As for med school apps, I used it as my clinical experience since I have about 150 hospital hours through it and wrote about one of my experiences in my personal statement and I'm sitting on 6 interviews so far.

And for the record, I am in school full time, work 20 hrs/week, volunteer and "work" as a doula (I don't charge), so it's totally doable. But during the school year I only take on one birth/month.

I hope this answers all your questions. Feel free to pm me if you have more. I love talking about doula work. 🙂

 

[pietachok]

I think that if you do this, you need to be careful about how you obtain your training. You should be prepared that you might be interviewed by someone who is concerned by the fact that doula training is not regulated/standardized. If you are asked a question about it, you need to be able to honestly say you had significant training (some doulas do not). Because if a college student told me she took a 3 day certification course and then hung out a shingle as a doula, I'd be inclined to look down upon the behavior -- whatever support you can offer as a doula, in my mind, is predicated by experience, and I'd think it unethical to put yourself out there as a doula without any (yet my understanding is that you can in this country).

You would also need to be able to address questions about doulas' role in birthing. Many have been accused of essentially giving medical advice and guilting women into maintaining natural birth plans after they decide in the moment that they want pain management. Some have an adversarial relationship with other providers like nursing staff. You can be in an ethically sticky area if you open this up for discussion, and it may not be beneficial to your application if you hold different opinions on this issue than your interviewer if he/she has strong feelings about the issue.

 

[thisisansley]

I agree with the above. I was trained/am becoming certified through DONA International, which is arguably the most respected organization of doulas. But I know one of the places I get referrals through let's people become doulas with a 3 hour training class so it's definitely not standardized.

I also always say that my goal as a doula is to ensure that the mother is as happy with her birth as possible while staying the heck out of the way for the doctors and nurses. I've never had a problem with hospital staff (and have documented evaluations to prove it). And all of my clients have ended up getting an epidural when they felt they couldn't handle the pain and I fully support that decision. My job is to support them, not give them medical advice or tell them what to do.