I am not just pro-birth. I believe in supporting a woman during and after pregnancy.
Even if you are planning a birth with an epidural, the evidence suggests that a doula can help make things go much more smoothly.
Women are being told to get midwives [in UK] because there's not enough room and there's not enough pain medicine at the hospitals.
Normal birth to me should not be numb from the waist down and waiting for the doctor to tell you to push. There's a reason we feel it. There's a reason we need to feel it.
The work I do when I'm not making music is very much about service, helping women give birth or aiding in family planning.
I'm not sure if my husband is going to be there when I actually have the baby. He said the only way he's going to be in the room when there's a delivery is if there's a pizza involved.
I was always interested in becoming a midwife. Then, at my own birth, I didn't get the support I'd hoped for, and that changed everything. That's why I became a doula. There's such a need.
I'm definitely not the person who's gonna sit anywhere and tell you that home birth is the only way to have a baby because I don't believe that. But I do think the only way to have a baby is where you feel great about your birth.
There is no way out of the experience except through it, because it is not really your experience at all but the baby's. Your body is the child's instrument of birth.
I just believe pregnant women need a familiar face, someone who isn't related to them who they may have all this emotional past with, to be there, just for them, during the birth.
The idea of windows, that's so symbolic to me within labor. And I'm always opening windows during a birth. If someone's been in labor all night and they're exhausted and sort of over it, opening a window or drawing a curtain can change the game. And sometimes the doula is the first one to suggest it.
I wanted a doula because it's my first baby, and I want to be able to call her when I'm going into labor so she can come over and help us go through the early stage.
I feel like doulas put the ball back in the mom's court. They trust you to normalize the high drama.
If we can't support a woman while she is giving life, then we don't support women.
