Articles on doula training, certification, recognition and building a practice from Birth & Baby University.
A cesarean is major abdominal surgery and also the beginning of life with a newborn. Families often leave the hospital with a stack of instructions and little sense of what recovery will feel like.…
Read the article: Postpartum Recovery After Cesarean Birth: What Evidence-Based Support Looks LikeFor many pregnant and postpartum families, the nearest place to give birth is not close. When a hospital closes its obstetric unit, or a county never had one, a routine prenatal visit can mean…
Read the article: Rural Maternal Healthcare Deserts: The Challenges Facing Pregnant and Postpartum FamiliesIllinois does not license doulas, but recognized certification is essential for working with clients, hospitals, and the state’s Medicaid doula pathway. The core steps: complete evidence-based training, earn a recognized certification, and if you…
Read the article: How to Become a Doula in Illinois (Including Medicaid Pathways)Search engine optimization can sound like a secret craft. Google's own documentation says otherwise: there are practices that help search engines understand a site and help people decide to visit it, and there are…
Read the article: Search Engine Optimization for Doulas: How to Help Families Find Your ServicesPostpartum doula training typically includes five phases: choosing and enrolling in a program, completing a curriculum covering newborn care through perinatal mood awareness, practicing hands-on skills, passing assessments to earn certification, and transitioning to…
Read the article: Postpartum Doula Training: What to Expect From Start to CertificationWhether a doula is welcomed or tolerated often depends less on the doula's skill than on whether the clinician knows who they are. Obstetricians and midwives vary widely in their experience with doulas. This…
Read the article: How Doulas Can Build Productive Relationships With Obstetricians and MidwivesMany doulas learned the stages of labor as a tidy sequence: dilate at about a centimeter an hour, then push. Researchers have spent the last fifteen years showing that real labors do not follow…
Read the article: Understanding the Stages of Labor: Why Modern Research Has Changed How We Define ProgressNew parents tend to hear two contradictory messages about newborn sleep: that babies sleep all the time, and that babies never sleep. Both are partly true, and the confusion often turns into worry. Understanding…
Read the article: Understanding Newborn Sleep Cycles: Why Babies Sleep Differently From AdultsIf you plan to work with Medicaid clients, you will quickly discover that there is no single "Medicaid doula benefit." There are dozens, built state by state, with different definitions of who counts as…
Read the article: Medicaid Coverage for Doula Services: How State Programs Work and Why Requirements DifferNew parents often say the same things in different words: "We barely talk." "We're a team, but we're exhausted and snappy." "I didn't expect to feel this distant." Postpartum doulas are inside the household…
Read the article: How the Transition to Parenthood Affects Couple RelationshipsPage 17 of 23
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