Empowering Women Through Labor and Birth

Interview and Guest Post by Devon Jay Hughes

 

 

ix months ago, I got mar­ried and moved to Rochester, New York. Soon after, my hus­band and I became friends with a cou­ple that holds weekly get-togethers in their home. We share a meal, jam out, have long talks. Fel­low­ship. One of the peo­ple I met there was Crys­tal Jackel, and at first sight, I knew she was an inter­est­ing and strong woman…and preg­nant. (Seven months to be exact.) Like a beam of light, she entered the house where we were gath­ered, her gor­geous dread­locks pulled back in an ele­gant up-do, in the crook of her arm a dish of cooked kale, and com­ing out from behind her flow­ing skirt, her entourage of three lit­tle girls, burst­ing with energy. After our meal, the men mean­dered away to tune their gui­tars in the liv­ing room, and I found myself stay­ing at the table, intrigued by this pos­i­tively radi­ant woman pass­ing along wis­dom to our host (also a soon-to-be mother of her fourth child). I lis­tened intently to their opin­ions of the local dairy, var­i­ous essen­tial oils and their uses, and pre­na­tal mas­sage tech­niques. As a new­ly­wed and woman who has, at least for now, no desire to be a mother, I found I had a lot to learn from these women. And this knowl­edge they were impart­ing was all so…womanly. Female-centric. Nur­tur­ing. I was mesmerized.

Later back at home, I saw Crys­tal had friended me on Face­book. So, nat­u­rally, I scanned her page, look­ing to “get to know” her bet­ter. Sud­denly, I exclaimed to my hus­band (for he, too, was read­ing his smart­phone in bed) that Crys­tal was not only a full-time momma, but also a musi­cian (who had recently released her first CD), world trav­eler, salon owner, and a doula! My curios­ity, again, was piqued. I mean…what’s…a doula? I got to dig­ging, start­ing with her blog. Here, I’ll share the results of that dig as well as impart what I have learned from the source herself.

The Inter­view

For those like me who have never even heard the word…What is a doula?

It’s about empow­er­ing women, which is a very fem­i­nist stand­point.

A doula, to me, is a birth coach who comes in to help the birth mother. She is in an emo­tional and phys­i­cal sup­port role for [the birth mother] in labor and birth. But, we’re non-medical, so not to be con­fused with any­one in the med­ical field. We are only there for phys­i­cal and emo­tional sup­port. …It’s moth­er­ing the mother. Your equal. It’s about empow­er­ing women, which is a very fem­i­nist stand­point. The whole thing that moti­vates doulas is the empow­er­ing women por­tion of what we do.

So, not a midwife?

No, no. It’s very dif­fer­ent from a mid­wife. In fact, if we were to give med­ical advice, we would be super­sed­ing the DONA Inter­na­tional cer­ti­fi­ca­tion guide­lines. It’s con­sid­ered out­side of our exper­tise and, quite hon­estly, we become liable if we give med­ical advice.

That prob­a­bly comes in handy if you were a doula in a hos­pi­tal setting.

It does come in handy because we explain to every woman in advance — and she signs a paper before we begin — that they under­stand that, so that they’re not look­ing to us for answers when it’s crunch time. We’re also big on empow­er­ing the woman to have a voice and so we do not speak on their behalf. A lot of it has to do with mak­ing the woman feel con­fi­dent in her own body and con­fi­dent in who she is as a woman and as a mother who can birth. It’s impor­tant that, as a doula, we’re not just spoon­feed­ing to the mother what she should be doing. Even more so in the hos­pi­tal set­ting because many times there is the physi­cian who is involved — or a mid­wife — and we as doulas have to be able to honor the physi­cian and the mid­wife, even if we don’t agree with their deci­sion. So our job is to pre­pare the woman, before she gets into that sit­u­a­tion — to feel like she has a voice.

How exactly do you do that? Is that where the “birth plan” comes in?

That’s a part of it. A lot of women don’t know how to write a birth plan, so we go through all the vari­ables of birth and labor, and all the things that could pos­si­bly hap­pen. We talk about their ideal birth, and what it would look like if cer­tain things got shaken in what they think is ideal. So I lay out a bunch of index cards of every­thing that they would like dur­ing their birth. Then, later on, I talk about what it would look like if it were to be the oppo­site of what they chose. We talk about that, and we talk through the options. A lot of times, when women are in labor, the doc­tor will say, “I think you should do this.” Well, a lot of women don’t know their options, you know? If an OB comes in and says, “The heart rate is drop­ping. I think we should do oxy­gen.” In that moment, a lot of times women wouldn’t know that there is any other option besides what her OB is presenting.

 

As a doula, we can talk about the vari­ables. “If this were to happen…if they sug­gest oxygen…this is what you could do.” A lot of times, it’s just a mat­ter of telling the woman, “If there’s any­thing you’re uncom­fort­able with dur­ing the birth and labor, ask for five min­utes to talk to your part­ner or spouse. Talk about what deci­sion you feel com­fort­able in.” So, it’s really just about birth prep. Allow­ing the woman to get to know her body. It’s amaz­ing to me how lit­tle we do know about our bod­ies. It really is, and that’s why fear is a big fac­tor in labor and birth. Now there are sci­en­tific stud­ies on how fear dis­rupts the labor process. So, it very impor­tant than women are not fear­ful dur­ing labor and birth. Really, the doula is there so that she can come in and bring that kind of con­fi­dence the woman needs.

(Pauses to go check on her newborn)

I think one of my biggest rev­e­la­tions from read­ing your blog was you say giv­ing birth can be joy­ful. I guess elim­i­nat­ing fear is a part of the process. So, can giv­ing birth be a joy­ful and nearly pain­less process? When­ever I think about it, I can only think “Oooyyy…!” That’s the only emo­tion that comes to mind. (both laugh­ing)

I do believe birth can be pain­less. There’s a book called…and it’s not for everyone…it’s called Super­nat­ural Child­birth, and it talks about a pain-free birth. It’s talk­ing about how “the curse” has been elim­i­nated through the power of Christ, so we can be pain-free in the process of birth. But, at the same rate, not every client I have is a believer. So, with that, I use some of the same tools, but I don’t “stick Jesus on it.”
When you elim­i­nate fear, child­birth can be a joy­ful process, in all realms. You’re pro­duc­ing oxy­tocin, which is the love hor­mone. It is a drug. It’s a seri­ous drug. It makes you happy when you shouldn’t be happy. Birth is immensely intense, but it doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily have to be painful. I teach often that we shouldn’t suf­fer through birth and labor. If we are suf­fer­ing, then we need to refo­cus because I do believe that labor was meant to be enjoyed. Espe­cially birth. It’s at our high­est level of oxytocin.
And it’s not just the love you have toward your baby, but also your part­ner. It’s an inti­mate moment. You’re com­pletely vul­ner­a­ble. Com­pletely exposed. The peo­ple in the room…it really mat­ters who you have in the room. I believe it can be one of the most inti­mate moments we would ever go through in life. More inti­mate than even our wed­ding day, when we first see our spouse, and we’re in that inti­mate place, because you’re bring­ing every­one there into the world of birth and labor. Moth­ers have a very unique role when it comes to labor and birth.

 

Also, the moment when you get to hold your baby for the first time. It’s…(pauses) an ecsta­tic joy. It’s hard to put into words because you’re in this intense labor­ing, usu­ally for hours, and if you’re in-tune to your body, you can give your­self over to the labor­ing process, rather than fight­ing it. What it comes down to for a lot of women is learn­ing how to be res­cued, really, from the fight or flight mentality.

 

 

That’s because when our bod­ies are expe­ri­enc­ing pain, we want to flee, or we want to fight it. But you can’t run away from it! Once you’re preg­nant, you’re preg­nant. And once the labor starts, there’s no run­ning away from it, so most often what hap­pens is women try to fight it. The more we try to fight a con­trac­tion, honestly…the more pain it brings. A lot of times what women do is, well, we tense up. You can see it in their faces, how they’re cring­ing their eye­brows. You can see it in the way they raise their shoul­ders. So my role is always to get them to relax and to “think low” and actu­ally visu­al­ize the baby mov­ing down­ward, into the cervix and to help her get

(Skype cuts out because her iPad died)

So we were talk­ing about visu­al­iz­ing the baby com­ing down…Does that tend to help? Sim­ply telling them (like yoga) to be aware, men­tally. That mind-body connection?

Right. It’s really impor­tant in birth. To be a doula, you have to believe in visu­al­iza­tion because that’s a big part of birth coach­ing. Teach­ing the birth mother how to visu­al­ize. The more she’s capa­ble of using her mind and con­nect­ing it to what’s going on with her body, the bet­ter her labor is going to be. Every woman is dif­fer­ent. For instance, for me, when I had a con­trac­tion, I actu­ally would say the word “low.” I was pic­tur­ing the head mov­ing down. And you always want to keep it “low.” Even keep your voice low because, the minute that a woman goes into her higher voice, she pan­ics. So I also lis­ten for what tone of voice and facial expres­sions they’re using. With my doula, I asked her, if she saw my eye­brows cring­ing, to put her fin­ger there (lightly places her mid­dle fin­ger between her eye­brows) because that will help me to remem­ber to relax my face. And it needed to be soft because, dur­ing my con­trac­tions, I didn’t like to be touched very much. So she would just do that softly, and it would remind me to keep open. Then, when I was able to focus in on what my con­trac­tion was doing, and that every one was a step closer to see­ing my baby, it brought joy.

 

But when I expe­ri­ence the con­trac­tion, and I felt that it was painful, and I wanted to fight it, it was as if I couldn’t progress. A lot of women will labor longer if they fight their con­trac­tions. This is usu­ally when I rec­om­mend an epidural because some women have a harder time tap­ping into lis­ten­ing to their bod­ies and giv­ing them­selves over to the con­trac­tion. Usu­ally that’s a last resort because the women who typ­i­cally want a doula are look­ing to go as nat­ural as pos­si­ble. The only time I’ve seen women not capa­ble of not giv­ing them­selves over to the con­trac­tions is when there is fear involved. Fear is the major inhibitor in birth and labor.

Would you say, from your expe­ri­ence, that there tends to be more fear in first-time moth­ers or a mother who has had a bad expe­ri­ence (e.g. — a tear)? Or maybe there are dif­fer­ent types of fear?

There’s def­i­nitely fear for first-time moth­ers. Fear of the unknown. Yet fear tends to be harder to deal with with some­one who has had a trau­matic birth and that they’re birthing again.

The woman who is in labor is the hero. She’s the star of the show, and so what­ever she wants, goes.

A good half of my clients have come to me because of trau­matic expe­ri­ences dur­ing birth, and so they’re want­ing to feel empow­ered, and some­times they want their part­ner to be more involved, and they don’t know how to. So, a doula can also help the part­ner. Make them feel more equipped. Some­times the man might not feel — or woman! — equipped in the labor­ing room. They feel like, “She’s in pain, and I’m just stand­ing here. I don’t know how to help.” I say, first of all, it’s best if you go in there feel­ing unof­fended. The woman who is in labor is the hero. She’s the star of the show, and so what­ever she wants, goes. And it’s really just help­ing the part­ner get on board with what she needs.

Also, let­ting them [the part­ner] know that they have a voice because their voice is just as impor­tant as the mother’s voice. There have been a lot of cou­ples I’ve spo­ken to who have said, “They told my wife ____ while she was in labor, but I didn’t feel like I could say dif­fer­ent.” So I get to help them, also. Feel empow­ered. Together. And I love it! Hon­estly, it’s so beau­ti­ful with a cou­ple who has had a trau­matic birth. We’re meet­ing and hav­ing the pre­na­tal vis­its before she goes into labor, and just see­ing the change… “Wow! Why didn’t any­body tell us?!” A lot of times I’ll leave those meet­ings and I’ll be like, “This is why I’m doing this.” It feels so good. So gratifying.

Do you find that, with these cou­ples, the woman giv­ing birth is more often turn­ing to you (the doula) or her partner?

Actu­ally, I think most often it’s how much the part­ner wants to be involved. I had one cou­ple (it was their first baby), and the hus­band wanted to help a lot. In fact, he didn’t want a doula. He thought that the doula would replace him. So we talked through that, that a doula never replaces the part­ner. Like, if a part­ner wants to be involved, we’re there to help them. So he was con­cerned he wouldn’t be able to help her as much, and I said, “You can be involved as much or as lit­tle as your want.” And because I knew he wanted to be involved, I would help him dur­ing the labor. I’d say, “You might want to try this,” rather than me get­ting in there and say­ing, “Let me try this.” I would show him pres­sure points. If he was mas­sag­ing her, and it was too hard, I’d say, “Why don’t you try this?” and show him how to do it. A lot of women can’t take vig­or­ous mas­sage while they’re in labor, and a lot of hus­bands just want to (makes fran­tic cir­cling motions with hands) and get deep because that’s what they like, but for the mother, it can be too much. So, I show them how to go slow.

But, then, if they don’t want to be involved, or if they’re tired, I can come in, and I can help them. With this first time mom, she was in labor for, I think, 26 hours (I cover my face and moan)…yeah…it was amaz­ing, though. No epidural. No inter­ven­tions. It was because she had the right sup­port sys­tem. The doc­tor was so amazed with [the mother’s] labor and birth, she wrote me a doctor’s recommendation.

Wow. You cov­ered my “big” ques­tions up front (both laugh), so let’s get some basic ques­tions in. I’m not sure if this is some­thing you learned when you got cer­ti­fied, but can you say some­thing about the his­tory of doulas? The ori­gin? How nowa­days it’s got­ten to be pop­u­lar again? Any­thing, really, about it’s history.

Just to show us that women were always empow­er­ing one another in labor and birth, even if they weren’t nec­es­sar­ily called a “doula” then.

If you look back at arti­facts, old sculp­tures, Renais­sance art, you will see women highly involved in labor and birth. We (the doulas in train­ing) got to see a lot of that when we were learn­ing. Just to show us that women were always empow­er­ing one another in labor and birth, even if they weren’t nec­es­sar­ily called a “doula” then. It was just the art of birth and labor, you know? A lot of times, they’d have birth cir­cles where there would be sev­eral women present. I think there are some reli­gions that involved the dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions of women, too.

That was another question…are doulas always women?

Yes! It’s a good ques­tion, though, because we (the local doula coop­er­a­tive) do have one male doula but…it con­tra­dicts, a lot of times, what you’re going for because…only women really under­stand women.

Are there doulas who aren’t moth­ers? If so, then how can they talk some­one through the process if they haven’t gone through child­birth them­selves? Does book knowl­edge carry that far?

They want to see women be able to make choices, to feel empow­ered. They want women to know their options.

It is a lit­tle bit more dif­fi­cult. We had women in my class who had not had babies, but they’re just pas­sion­ate. They’re fem­i­nists, you know? They want to see women be able to make choices, to feel empow­ered. They want women to know their options. And they love the process of life.

There were a cou­ple of stu­dents look­ing to go to mid­wifery school, but wanted to do doula first so they could see the nur­tur­ing aspect of birth and not just the med­ical aspect. And, quite hon­estly, because we do so much prac­tice on one another, they do learn.

Nur­tur­ing looks dif­fer­ent in all of us.

Part of it is just being a woman. Nur­tur­ing looks dif­fer­ent in all of us. You may not see your­self as the nur­tur­ing type, but it just man­i­fests dif­fer­ently. You like to teach. You like to cook. Your love lan­guage is you like to pro­vide a ser­vice to peo­ple. It just looks dif­fer­ent. And so, yes, women who haven’t had babies do make awe­some doulas. It just might take them a lit­tle bit longer to get accus­tomed to how to best serve [the birth mother] because you do, obvi­ously, learn a lot through expe­ri­enc­ing birth.

What are the ser­vices a doula would say they offer (pre­na­tal, child­birth, post­par­tum)? The “pack­age,” if you could call it that.

Well, a birth doula and a post­par­tum doula are two dif­fer­ent things. If you hire a birth doula, she’s not really going to be involved much post­par­tum, and a post­par­tum doula is only going to be involved dur­ing the after birth.

A birth doula usu­ally offers two pre­na­tal vis­its. Each is an hour to two hours long. (Mine are always two hours or more because you get talking…if they have ques­tions…) Usu­ally at their home. Some occa­sions you might meet them out, but it’s bet­ter if it’s a more inti­mate setting.

Your first pre­na­tal visit is talk­ing about if they’ve already had births, what they were like… Get­ting to know the per­son you’re serv­ing. Learn­ing what’s their ideal birth, and answer­ing ques­tions about birth itself. Talk­ing about their options. Then you present to them a birth plan tem­plate. I usu­ally offer all of my clients at our first meet­ing a birth plan tem­plate which gives them all their options of what they should con­sider dur­ing birth so they don’t have to try to fig­ure it all out in their head.

The most trau­matic things that hap­pen dur­ing birth is when you feel forced into a place that you’re not com­fort­able with and you don’t have any abil­ity to change that.

Then later, at the sec­ond meet­ing, we talk about every sin­gle thing they put down. That’s when I usu­ally lay out their ideal birth and talk about what could hap­pen if it doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily go they way that they’d planned, so that they can pre­pare emo­tion­ally for those things. The most trau­matic things that hap­pen dur­ing birth is when you feel forced into a place that you’re not com­fort­able with and you don’t have any abil­ity to change that. If the woman goes in there, know­ing before­hand what she wants to hap­pen and what could hap­pen, it makes her feel a whole lot more com­fort­able and keep fear out of the door. That’s what I go for: Mak­ing sure the woman feels like she’s ready. That’s birth coach­ing. It’s cen­tered around teach­ing a woman on how to labor and how birth.

When it comes to labor­ing, the doula likes to get there before active labor, so she can be there the entire time the woman is in active labor. If the woman does want me there ear­lier, dur­ing pre-labor, or she thinks she’s in labor, then I will go and keep an eye on the per­son. But usu­ally, active labor is when the doula shows up, which is usu­ally when [the birth mother] is at least 4 cen­time­ters if it’s her first, or if it’s their sec­ond, and it’s fast…then we get there really fast! (laughs) We get there as soon as they call, just in case. Some­times we’re there before the mid­wife or OB because we want to be there through the whole process.

We offer atmos­phere, help­ing make the envi­ron­ment that would make her com­fort­able to birth in.

Dur­ing the process of labor, we offer every­thing that you can think of that wouldn’t be med­ical. We offer atmos­phere, help­ing make the envi­ron­ment that would make her com­fort­able to birth in. We’ll get any sup­plies ready that would make her more com­fort­able, whether it’s the birth tub, or get­ting a tub ready in the hos­pi­tal, mas­sag­ing her back…anything we can rec­om­mend to make her more com­fort­able. We run errands. Some­times she doesn’t need you right away, but her and her part­ner want coffee…it doesn’t mat­ter! She’s the star of the show. What­ever she needs is what we give.

Usu­ally, every birth doula stays 1–2 hours after the baby is born to help with the first stages of nurs­ing and breast­feed­ing, espe­cially if she’s a new mom. She’ll need some help. Every woman is really dif­fer­ent. If a woman is larger breasted, it can be a much harder process for nurs­ing, so it’s impor­tant that we offer breast­feed­ing sup­port. What’s the best way to posi­tion the baby so they’re latch­ing cor­rectly? We make sure she com­fort­able enough to hold the baby. You know, if there’s been a Cesarean, a woman is not capa­ble of hold­ing the baby right away. It’s becom­ing bet­ter known, though, to keep the baby with you, so a lot of women now are want­ing to keep their baby in their room and not nec­es­sar­ily send them to nurs­ery, so a doula could be there just to hold the baby the hour that the anes­the­sia is wear­ing off. I’ve even had some doula friends who actu­ally helped moms that have had Cesare­ans help the baby latch onto the mother, even though she can’t hold the baby. So a doula usu­ally stays 1–2 hours after­ward just to make sure the mother is com­fort­able and has every­thing she needs.

A post­par­tum doula helps with breast­feed­ing as well, but more the ongo­ing issues that could happen…not the ini­tial issues that you might have like latch­ing. Some­times a woman might have engorged breasts where the baby’s not latch­ing. Some­times they may have thrush. The baby may have suck­ling issues. The woman may get blis­ters on their breasts because, you know, you’re not used to nursing…

(laughs) My mom called it the vac­uum. She says it’s like putting a vac­uum on some­thing very tender…many times a day…

It is! It’s not even some­times a latch­ing issue, but just the fact that you have some­body suck­ling for count­less hours…so it can be painful. But hav­ing a post­par­tum doula come and encour­age her helps.

The doula is also avail­able to help the woman heal cor­rectly. Makes sure she’s not over­do­ing it. She can clean [the mother’s] house. If you have other chil­dren, she can care for them. She can make dinner…she can make break­fast, lunch, and din­ner!… if you want a doula for the first 48 hours. I rec­om­mend a post­par­tum doula for home birthing moms because they don’t have the nor­mal 48 hours where a nurse is check­ing on you in a hos­pi­tal. That’s my biggest con with the home birth. (There are lots of pros!) (laughs) But the one con is the after birth…making sure that the woman is not left alone. That’s where a post­par­tum doula can be ben­e­fi­cial because she will do what­ever is needed.

Also, post­par­tum depres­sion. Most women don’t like talk­ing to their part­ners about their depres­sion, post­par­tum, because it’s highly emo­tional. Quite hon­estly, most men don’t under­stand it, so it’s awe­some when you can have a girl­friend or a doula that you can talk to about the emo­tions. Espe­cially for first-time moms.

They charge dif­fer­ently. Usu­ally a birth doula is, as a whole, any­where from $400–600 for the pack­age, where a post­par­tum doula charges by the hour. A lot of them have a min­i­mum of 8 hours. I don’t have a min­i­mum, but I know a lot of peo­ple who started that because it’s not worth their while. It’s usu­ally around $25 an hour. They come over, but they won’t spend the night unless the woman needs it. So, the doula might come over 8 hours dur­ing that 48 hour period.

To me, the post­par­tum doula sounds like what the moth­ers in my fam­ily do. If I were to have a baby, my mom would be on the next plane, and she would plan to stay here a week or so. I know not all fam­i­lies can do that, time-wise or money-wise, or even have that type of rela­tion­ship where the birth mother would want their fam­ily member(s) there, but that is how it was with my mother’s mother, and I’m sure, if the times comes, for me. My grand­mother cooked, she cleaned…it was all about my mom being able to recoup. I can see, though, how hav­ing a doula would be ben­e­fi­cial for that birth mother who couldn’t or wouldn’t have their mother present after giv­ing birth.

Yeah, I had a post­par­tum doula, and it was because my mother couldn’t be here. You’re right. I didn’t need a post­par­tum doula with my first and sec­ond, but my mother hasn’t come up for the last two births, and that’s because she’s still young and works and is out of town (Michi­gan). With my third child (and first home birth), I learned it wasn’t fun, not hav­ing some­one there after­ward, so this time around, I made sure I had peo­ple that were going to be here. Bran­don [her hus­band] took off from work…I had a post­par­tum doula…I needed to have a sup­port per­son who was here.

A lot of times post­par­tum doulas do end up serv­ing women who don’t have any sup­port. A lot of times it ends up being sin­gle moms. And there are times that we offer our ser­vices for free. We call them “gratis births.”

Yeah, I saw on your blog that “every woman who wants a doula gets one.” How does that work?

they encour­age every doula to do at least do one free birth a year, if not more.

It’s a DONA Inter­na­tional cer­ti­fi­ca­tion belief that, any woman that wants a doula should get one. No woman should be in labor and birth with­out the sup­port she needs. [DONA] is so big on believ­ing that women need to be empow­ered through this that they encour­age every doula to do at least do one free birth a year, if not more. Most doulas I know end up doing four…one every quar­ter. That’s why we have the co-op in Rochester, so we can take for one another peo­ple who are look­ing for gratis births because you can get over­whelmed very eas­ily by how many peo­ple want a doula for free. There are lots of women out there who want a doula but can’t afford one, or sin­gle moth­ers with no support.

Just to have some­body there to tell you, “You’re doing amaz­ing!” can make all the dif­fer­ence, so that birth is a joy­ful expe­ri­ence and not a trau­matic one.

I did a gratis birth a few months ago, right before my baby was born. It was a sin­gle mother. Her boyfriend ended up being in prison, so she was all by her­self. It was her sec­ond baby, and there was a lot of fear involved. She ended up get­ting an epidural because there was so much fear involved, but I was able to be there for her and coach her and tell her she wasn’t alone. Tell her that she’s doing a good job. Just to have some­body there to tell you, “You’re doing amaz­ing!” can make all the dif­fer­ence, so that birth is a joy­ful expe­ri­ence and not a trau­matic one.

I hadn’t even heard of a doula before, so how do these women know about this service?

It’s really about edu­ca­tion. It’s about get­ting the infor­ma­tion out, and doulas are work­ing hard to do that. We’re try­ing to become able to be paid by insur­ance. Kinda like how chi­ro­prac­tic care started… At one time, chi­ro­prac­tors were seen as a whack doctor…massage ther­apy. Peo­ple didn’t really see them as doc­tors. But now, peo­ple rec­og­nize them and that what they’re doing makes a dif­fer­ence. The edu­ca­tion that’s gone into chi­ro­prac­tic care…well, peo­ple have just got­ten the infor­ma­tion out. So now, when a per­son goes to a chi­ro­prac­tor, most insur­ances will cover it. Doulas are kinda the same way.

And to answer what you were ask­ing ear­lier, about the his­tory of doulas, the word “doula” and what we’re doing is rel­a­tively new because, in the last 50 years, [labor and birth] has been seen as a med­ical pro­ce­dure. But since we were cre­ated, it was never a med­ical pro­ce­dure. It was a nat­ural thing, you know? Child­birth was some­thing we were cre­ated to know how to do. Home birthing was nor­mal! But over time, we started to have doc­tors that spe­cial­ized in birth, and it became more of a med­ical pro­ce­dure than some­thing women would do at home. Women were put you to sleep in the 1950s, and they wouldn’t even know.

They’d wake up with a baby in their arms.

Yes, essen­tially. A lot of women couldn’t hold their babies because they would be too groggy. So these women would birth all alone. Their hus­bands were not allowed in the room. And it was this very ster­ile envi­ron­ment. They would cover the women’s legs with draperies, and all the OBs were men…

It was like a the­ater. A birthing theater.

Yeah. And there were no women OBs at that time. There were nurses… Actu­ally, I remem­ber inter­view­ing (for one of my classes, we had to inter­view some­one who had birthed +30 years ago), and she doesn’t even remem­ber her labor and birth! So we’ve come quite a ways. I think what we’re rec­og­niz­ing is…we’re going back to our roots. That’s what a doula is help­ing us do. They’re real­iz­ing that women labor shorter and bet­ter when they have the right support.

Now, you seem to pre­fer a home birth. Your first two chil­dren were born in the hos­pi­tal, but the last two have been at home. When you meet with your moth­ers, do you tell them this? Do you rec­om­mend a home birth?

That can be hard as a doula, but it can also be free­ing. It’s not my birth.

You know, most of the women when I meet with at the first pre­na­tal home visit already know where they’ll be birthing. They already have a mid­wife or an OB, so I work with them. I don’t ever make a sug­ges­tion unless they’re ask­ing. That can be hard as a doula, but it can also be free­ing. It’s not my birth. It’s their birth, so I feel like my role can be as sig­nif­i­cant in the hos­pi­tal as it can be at home. And, quite hon­estly, I think doulas are needed more in the hospital.

You men­tioned “serv­ing” ear­lier. I’ve seen two or three def­i­n­i­tions (from the Greek) for doula. They say “slave,” “ser­vant”… How would you trans­late the word “doula”?

Not slave. I think we go more with “ser­vant.” We are there to serve.

“Doula” isn’t even a fem­i­nine word. In the Greek sense, any­body can be called a doula. It’s a very sim­ple “to serve,” but we’ve taken it on as a name. I’m not even quite sure who orig­i­nally did that…I guess it would be a good research project to see who did. But it makes sense. The ulti­mate ser­vice could be moth­er­ing because a mother gives so much. And so when I hear “doula,” the first thing that comes to my mind is “mother.”

I think we’ve cov­ered most of my ques­tions except a few, more per­sonal ques­tions. Like, what made you want to become a doula?

Well, first I think my love for moth­er­hood, but then also…all four of my birth were very dif­fer­ent, and I feel like, if I had known then what I knew now (that’s kinda a cliche answer), I would’ve enjoyed my births a lot more. I would have enjoyed my chil­dren dif­fer­ently, as well, because so much of your labor and birth expe­ri­ence goes into how you bond with your baby.

I just saw how pow­er­ful it is when you believe in your­self.

And I just saw how pow­er­ful it is when you believe in your­self. How pow­er­ful it is when fear is not involved in birth, and when you feel free­dom in birth. Just tast­ing that made me think, “How can I help women learn what I’ve learned, but not have to go through the trauma of it first?”

That’s…that’s amaz­ing.

So that’s when I decided. I looked into mid­wifery at first, but it was so much school­ing, and I just felt like I was los­ing the heart of what I was look­ing at. It wasn’t until I had a girl­friend who told me about being a doula, and asked me, “Have you ever con­sid­ered being a doula?”

I also have a love for birth. I don’t think you can go into [being a doula] with­out that. I have a love for the whole birthing process. I’m not grossed out by it. I’m not grossed out by bod­ily fluid or any­thing like that, so I said, “I want to be involved in labor and birth.” There was this pull towards it. And my girl­friend told me how it’s birth coach­ing, so that’s when my ears perked. I decided that’s what I wanted to do.

What did the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion entail?

It’s a voca­tional school cer­tifi­cate. There are a cou­ple of com­pa­nies: CAPPA and DONA Inter­na­tional. I decided to go with DONA because they seem to be a lit­tle more world-renowned. I wanted to be able to travel inter­na­tion­ally as a doula, even­tu­ally, so I wanted to pick a place that I knew was well-known. They require so many hours of school (not semes­ters, like you’d do col­lege). I can’t remem­ber exactly how many hours of school­ing it is. On top of that, you have to have 12 hours of vol­un­teer birth, with at least 3 birth moth­ers. That’s usu­ally really easy to do because most peo­ple birth a lot longer than that. So, you have to have at least 3 vol­un­teers who let you be there doula through their labor and birth, and the pre­na­tal vis­its and every­thing. You also have five books you have to read, like text­books. It’s a lot of read­ing. You write papers on all of your books. By the way, the #1 book for women giv­ing birth is Ina May’s “Guide to Child­birth”. It’s the per­fect book for any doula or any woman who will be enter­ing child labor and birth.

Is that some­thing you can find at the library?

Yes! It’s very pop­u­lar! I bought mine at Barnes & Noble. Ina May is actu­ally a famous mid­wife. She lived in a com­mune where she ser­viced thou­sands of mothers.

Okay, last ques­tion. I saved the shock ‘n awe one…

I know where you’re going with this…

PLACENTA ENCAPSULATION?! I had to go there. I saw the YouTube videos on your blog, and at first, I thought, “Oh, this is so nasty!” but then I was like, “…this is kinda inter­est­ing.” I mean, I think most peo­ple only have heard about Tom Cruise or Jan­u­ary Jones. When I saw that ser­vice on your blog, I was sit­ting in the bed with John, and shouted, “JOHN! What is this?”

(laugh­ing) We don’t learn that when becom­ing a doula, no. That’s a sep­a­rate cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. As a doula, I’m offer­ing pla­centa encap­su­la­tion which I, tech­ni­cally, am going through cer­ti­fi­ca­tion right now for. You can offer it with­out cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, but I’m get­ting it just so peo­ple know that I’m abid­ing by OSHA reg­u­la­tions and guide­lines. So peo­ple know that I’m being san­i­tary. That I’ve been trained. So they feel bet­ter about what I do.

I assume because you pro­vide this ser­vice, you’ve also done this your­self. What are the ben­e­fits of ingest­ing your placenta?

Well, the biggest ben­e­fit of tak­ing your pla­centa are the hor­mone lev­els of oxy­tocin and [prostaglandin]. Both help reduce stress and help you bond with baby.

#1 is post­par­tum blues. Most women who strug­gle with post­par­tum blues, with depres­sion, have used the pla­centa encap­su­la­tion as a means of help­ing that with­out being med­icated. It’s a nat­ural way of help­ing you recoup with­out feel­ing like you have to turn to med­ica­tion, so it’s mostly very “earthy” moth­ers who are into pla­cen­tophagy. Actu­ally, most mam­mals that give birth con­sume the pla­centa! Because of these hor­mone lev­els, it makes your uterus con­tract, so that helps you not hem­or­rhage. In the hos­pi­tal, they’ll give you a shot to help your uterus con­tract and shorten, to help you stop bleed­ing. Well, the pla­centa does the same thing. Breast­feed­ing does the same thing.

There are also lots of vit­a­mins in the pla­centa. Iron. Your iron lev­els are low because it’s like you’re men­stru­at­ing. You’re bleed­ing for usu­ally 2–6 weeks, some­times up to 8 weeks if it’s your first baby. Heavy bleed­ing. So, you can feel really tired, depleted, but pla­centa is really high in iron. Also, in vit­a­min B6. It also helps speed up your metab­o­lism, so you can begin the heal­ing process. It has stem cells. So, all around, it can help you heal bet­ter. It also helps milk supply.

You can also freeze it. Some peo­ple use half after child­birth and then can use the other half when they’re going through menopause. I mean, it has oxy­tocin. Some­times I joke around with a client, like “You want more of that oxy­tocin, don’t you?”

I encap­su­lated my pla­centa with my last two births, but didn’t with my first two, so I’ve seen the dif­fer­ence, with and with­out it. This last time, when I took the dosages about six days after my child­birth, I felt ener­getic, more emo­tion­ally sta­ble, happy…so now, my hus­band has this joke for when I’m blue: “Maybe you need to take your pla­centa pills.” (laughs)

Your husband’s a nurse. Does he and the rest of the “sci­ence com­mu­nity” see this as a med­ically proven thing or just a home remedy?

It’s def­i­nitely seen as a home rem­edy right now. …I won­dered if you were going to ask about the pla­centa thing because doulas are an up-and-coming thing, but this is still a very new idea.

 

I’ve read arti­cles of a Chris­t­ian woman said con­sum­ing pla­centa is can­ni­bal­ism. I’ve read both sides of the coin, just so that I know how to bet­ter pre­pare myself as some­one who’s offer­ing this as a ser­vice. From what I’ve found, the ben­e­fits of con­sum­ing the pla­centa far out­weigh the cons. I believe in it. I expe­ri­enced a dif­fer­ence, con­sum­ing it myself, so because of that, I feel like women should have access to that ser­vice. Some doulas don’t rec­om­mend it. It just depends on your belief system.

It was actu­ally my hus­band who said, “You need to go get cer­ti­fied because you’re good at this and you believe in it.” At first, I was like, “I don’t know if I can do that with other people’s stuff.” (both laugh) You know what I mean? It’s kinda weird. But he said, “You love peo­ple enough to do it.” And that’s what it comes down to. You see it does help, and women need that. If there’s a way to not suf­fer through post­par­tum depres­sion, we should pro­vide that!

End of Interview

 

 

I con­tin­ued ask­ing Crys­tal ques­tions about pla­cen­tophagy until we finally decided to call it a night. I encour­age the reader to con­tinue their own explo­ration via Crystal’s blog and check out the linked YouTube videos and articles.

Devon Jayne Hughes - Writer

A David­son grad, Devon Jayne Hughes cur­rently lives in Rochester, NY with her hus­band. She delights in dis­cov­er­ing local restau­rants and for­eign land­scapes, reading/writing, lis­ten­ing to/playing music, cooking/eating vegan dishes, and for­ever being a student/teacher.