Austin Doula Support
Helping bring ease to your childbirth experience
The benefits of birth doula support in Austin
The journey of childbirth can be as overwhelming as it is magical and transformational. Your birth doula is someone you can rely on to have your back. They have your back mentally with experience and information-based guidance. They have your back emotionally as a trusted advocate for your needs. And they quite literally have your back with hands-on comfort measures like back massages to help you relax through the stresses of labor.
When you partner with a professional birth doula in Austin, they will focus on preparing you for and easing you through your childbirth. Your doula is with you every step of the way through your prenatal, labor, and postpartum periods.
How do birth doula services work?
Birth doulas are non-medical support professionals for expectant parents. They are certified to comfort and inform birthing people with childbirth education, labor support, and postpartum guidance . Before your baby’s birth, doulas help answer your questions and ease your fears so you can enter your labor with a sense of confidence. Studies have shown that partnering with a birth doula results in more positive childbirth experiences with better outcomes.
Your Austin doula will offer you knowledge-based information, emotional encouragement and physical support throughout the phases of childbirth and into the fourth trimester. Once you bring your new baby home, your doula will meet with you to ease your family’s postpartum transition and help you process the birth.
Prenatal doula consultations
You will meet with your doula for a handful of prenatal consultations. These meetings are to learn about what to expect during labor, to answer your questions, and to get to know each other better prior to the big day. You can meet in-person or virtually as needed. While you’ll go into depth about the process of childbirth as you connect, there is of course so much to learn that it can’t all be covered in a few hours. If you choose to expand your knowledge beyond the prenatal discussions, you have access to a whole host of additional childbirth education resources.
Labor and delivery doula support
Whether in the room with you during labor or available virtually, your doula will be available to you throughout labor. They are your personal advocate who you can count on for unbiased, evidence-based information without an agenda. They’ll offer breathing techniques, relaxation tips, and pain management guidance as needed. It’s not goal of your doula to influence or change your childbirth experience to be what they might prefer. Rather, your doula is present to provide the tools and support needed to help you navigate your own personal journey of childbirth.
Postpartum doula consultations
The days after your baby arrives home can be magical, beautiful, and let’s face it, stressful! Your doula will meet with you during the postpartum period to help you settle in and to answer your lingering questions. The guidance they can offer includes breastfeeding tips, sleep training suggestions, and safe swaddling techniques. Your doula can assist with holding the baby so you can take a break. They may also at times assist with cooking, cleaning, or light housework if that’s what is most needed in the moment. Your doula works to lighten your load through your transition home.
Birth doula packages
Birth doulas generally price their services based on the amount of experience they have and the number of services they are including. Since there is no way to know how long your labor might take, these birth doula packages allow you to put aside the concern of money since your price is the same whether your labor takes 4 hours or 40 hours.
Packages differ in scope of services provided. You’ll want to be aware of how many meetings are being offered in the prenatal and postpartum periods. You’ll also want to know if your Austin doula has back up in case something comes up and they are not available at the time you go into labor. More recently, birth doulas have been offering virtual doula services and ‘everything but the birth’ services to meet the changing needs of the birthing community.
Childbirth & Newborn Education
Price estimate $400-$600
If your hospital of choice is not allowing doulas in the room for labor, you may still wish to benefit from the guidance and knowledge of a doula in the prenatal period. The confidence built through childbirth education with a doula is invaluable to bringing about a positive outcome. The range and price of the childbirth education resources available varies by doula.
Virtual labor doula support
Price estimate $800-$1000
Another option available when your hospital does not allow doulas in the labor is a virtual doula. Your doula will be on call just like they would for an In-person birth. When you start labor, you’ll have them available virtually to offer guidance and advocacy whenever necessary. Virtual labor doula support generally costs less than in-person labor doula support but not always.
In-person labor doula support
Price estimate $1000-$2000
In-person labor doula support ranges in price rather dramatically based on the experience level of the doula. Doulas who are completing their training often offer their services for free for the first several births. Doulas with many years of experience often charge as much as $2000. Doula Match is a great resource for comparing prices and finding your perfect birth doula match.
Finding your Austin doula partner
When searching for a birth doula to partner with, you’ll have many options to consider. Your health care provider may have recommendations for specific doulas or doula agencies in Austin. A popular nation-wide platform called Doula Match is also a great way to search through a wide range of doulas of varying experience levels and prices.
If you search online for an Austin Doula, you’ll find a host of doula agencies offering the services of many professional support providers. These doula agencies will work to match you up with the best doula for your specific needs. Birth doula services also offer the support of doula backups in case anything comes up that causes your doula to be unavailable during your labor.
What does a doula do?
While doulas have been around for millennia, the concept of a doula is relatively new to our culture. So you’d be quite justified in asking yourself… what does a doula do? In short, a doula is a professional childbirth support person who assists birthing people through the prenatal, labor, and postpartum periods. Doulas provide evidence-based information as well as physical, psychological, and emotional support. They provide childbirth education before the birth and newborn care in the first three months after the birth, otherwise known as the fourth trimester.
Doulas serve as a birthing person’s advocate with the medical staff in charge of childbirth so that their stated desires are always represented even when they cannot be present enough to make those statements. They serve as a mediator of sorts with the hospital personnel. Doulas are not medical personal, though. They don’t deliver the baby and they don’t tell the birthing person what they should do. Rather, they provide experience and perspective to help the birthing person make the best choice for themselves and their own, unique childbirth journey.