Postpartum Doula in Austin
Fourth trimester support to ease your transition home
All about postpartum doula services in Austin, Texas.
A postpartum doula service assists new parents with their physical, informational, and emotional needs. Postpartum doulas can help identify a baby’s unique cues, provide breastfeeding guidance, assist with caring for other children in the home, and even perform light housework. These services include both day visits and overnight support.
A postpartum doula in Austin may be the best investment a new family can make to ensure that their transition home with their new baby is as smooth as possible. At a time when so many things are changing and this new little person is demanding all of your attention, having a little guidance and support can go a very long way.
What does a postpartum doula do?
While a birth doula may be familiar to you, you may still be asking yourself… what does a postpartum doula do? A postpartum doula is a certified newborn care specialist with training on how to safely work with a newborn child. They work with new families in the first three months of the postpartum period. They offer support in many forms ranging from physical to informational to emotional.
Your postpartum doula in Austin may visit your home once a week and offer you a much needed night of sleep, knowing your baby is in good hands. Or they may visit during the afternoon to help answer your questions and do light housework and meal preparation so you can focus fully on connecting with your new baby or just have some time to yourself. Postpartum doulas provide the resource of experienced insight and trained assistance when new families need it most.
Hold and comfort the baby
Being responsible for a brand new human is a 24 hour per day responsibility and sometimes what you really need is a break. During the first three months after birth, while your baby is at their most fragile, a postpartum doula is a great way to give yourself that much needed time to yourself. Knowing there is a trained professional caring for your new baby is an important part of being able to fully relax and recuperate.
Newborn care education
While not a replacement for a full newborn care class, a postpartum doula is an excellent resource to answer your questions as they arise. There will be so many finer points to caring for a newborn that just don’t occur to you until you are in the moment and nee to make a decision. An occasional visit from a postpartum doula gives you a great periodic opportunity to answer those newborn care questions.
Informational & emotional support
Beyond the benefits of access to a postpartum doula’s wealth of information, new parents also benefit from the emotional support they provide. Knowing birth and the specific fears and troubles that often accompany it allows your postpartum doula to be an empathetic presence who can hold space for you and help you process your experience.
Breastfeeding Support
The challenges of breastfeeding a newborn are not to be taken lightly. From correct latching to boosting production to safe storage, there are so many facets of breastfeeding to consider. A postpartum doula can help with breastfeeding tips and guidance when your baby arrives home. A full class on breastfeeding is still a great idea. Then you can use your postpartum doula to fill in the gaps and answer lingering questions that arise.
Prepare meals
When you can’t sleep for days on end, even the most basic necessities can sometimes become too much to handle. Your postpartum doula is focussed on getting you the support you need. If you need some healthy meals that nurture your post-labor body and allow you to maximize your breastmilk production, then that’s the support they will provide.
Light housework
It’s important to maintain your mental health as you transition your baby home. With so much to do in those early days, keeping the house clean can simply fall to the wayside. But there are few easier, faster ways to improve your inner perspective than to clean up your outer reality. Your postpartum doula can support you with light housework to help you keep your life in order as you focus on the new life you’ve created.
How much does a postpartum doula cost?
Hiring certified postpartum support is an invaluable resource in those overwhelming early days of parenthood. It does however have to have an actual value. So when you ask yourself how much does a postpartum doula cost, we hope this resource will help you answer your question.
According to DONA international, the amount a postpartum doula can cost may vary from state to state based on their certifications and experience. A certified Postpartum doula with experience charges anywhere between $45 to $70 per hour in large cities or $25-$40 in smaller towns.
The price of a postpartum doula can also vary dependent on the time of day when they visit the new family to help care for the baby. Daytime visits often cost less than overnight visits. Postpartum doula packages of several visits are offered to help reduce the cost by buying the service in bulk.
Day doula visits
Price estimate $35-$45
A daytime visit from a postpartum doula often lasts about 4 hours. The visit focusses on caring for the baby, answering questions, and giving the new parents time to organize their lives and have some daytime to themselves. The goal of daytime doula visits is more supportive and interactive than a night doula visit.
Night doula visits
Price estimate $40-$70
A night doula visit from a postpartum doula is focussed on getting the new parents a full night of sleep. Knowing the baby is in professional hands allows parents to fully relax and get rested for the next day. A night doula (sometimes called a night nurse) helps sooth and feed the baby to help them get back to sleep each time they wake up through the night.
Postpartum doula packages
Postpartum doula services are often purchased in packages of multiple visits at a time. These packages can be grouped as all day visits or all night visits or a mixture of both. You can spread the visits out over a month or the entire three month postpartum period. You can also supplement your postpartum doula package with additional visits as needed if you decide you’d like more support.
Having a postpartum doula visit your home once or twice per week for the first few weeks of having your new baby home is a great place to start. The first month tends to be the most challenging time since the new baby has had no time to learn about the world and develop habits. By the time the fourth month rolls around, your baby will likely be ready for sleep training and you may choose to use traditional child care services without doula certifications.
Daytime package
A Daytime Package of postpartum doula support includes multiple days of assistance. Generally visits last 4 hours but they can be made longer upon request. Daytime postpartum doula visits cost less per hour than night doula visits.
Nighttime package
A nighttime package of postpartum doula support is spread out over several evenings. Night doula visits generally last 8 to 9 hours so that you can get a full night of sleep. When a doula stays at your home overnight, the cost per hour is usually more than a daytime visit.
One month package
When you purchase a one month postpartum doula support package, you’ll receive a mixture of daytime and nighttime doula visits. These visits are generally enough to have 2 of each type of visit per week. If you prefer to spread them out over three months, you can always reduce the frequency to make them last longer.
Three month package
A full package of postpartum doula support is a three month package. The visits are split between daytime and nighttime visits and can be packed into a smaller timeframe if you like. Postpartum doulas prefer not to extend the three month package beyond that timeframe because after three months, most babies are mature enough to not require certified newborn care. At that point parents can utilize more traditional childcare assistance.
The benefits of using a postpartum doula service
The numerous benefits of using postpartum doula services include additional sleep, better relaxation, improved confidence through answered questions, and even a more pleasant overall experience of and memory of your new baby’s first few months at home. The first few years of a child’s life are instrumental in their development. The first few months of their lives are therefor reasonably exponentially more impactful on their overall development.
The costs of a postpartum doula are not insignificant. But the first three months of your transition into parenthood are also limited in length. Utilizing the experience and support of a professionally trained childbirth and newborn care expert during this critical period is certainly not a requirement for a good outcome. But when it is available to a new family, the benefits of having that support available can be priceless.
What is a postpartum doula?
A postpartum doula is a professionally trained, certified, newborn care specialist who provides physical, mental, and emotional support to new families. They have been around as a concept for millennia, but their profession is a more recent development in our culture. The benefits of having professional newborn support have been shown to be highly beneficial to new parents and their babies.
Ok then, but what is a doula? In more general terms, a doula is similarly a professionally trained, certified support specialist, but the term ‘doula’ is defined more broadly as a support person for the entire childbirth experience. A doula supports birthing people from conception through the end of the postpartum period. Doulas serve as educators, supporters, and advocates for birthing people around the world.
Are postpartum doulas certified?
Postpartum doulas are certified by various doula education organizations. The newborn care education postpartum doulas receive is highly detailed but less in-depth than birth doula education requirements. Be certain your postpartum doula is certified and qualified to give you newborn care advice and guidance before you agree to partner with them. Without a certification establishing their knowledge, they would just be a traditional childcare support person and you would not have the assurance of specialized newborn support training.
How to become a postpartum doula
If you would like to learn how to become a postpartum doula, you should start by researching the requirements with DONA International. Then search locally for schools that offer postpartum doula certification. Before committing to a local school, look online for your options to receive national training in an online environment. There is a vast need for postpartum doulas at present and as the service becomes more well known, the need only grow larger. It’s a great time to consider becoming a postpartum doula.