What is the Difference between a Midwife and a Doula?
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When you are deciding who to have at your birth, midwives and doulas make for great assets to have on your birth team. But what is a midwife and what’s the difference between a midwife and a doula.
I don’t know how many times I was asked this question when I was pregnant. Or how many times people interchanged the two like they were the same thing. A midwife and a doula are not the same thing. They hold two different functions and purposes in birth.
What is a midwife?
A midwife is a trained healthcare provider who is an expert in caring for women while pregnant, during labor and birth, and the postpartum period. They also provide newborn care. Midwives help aid women in physiological births so they tend to focus on more holistic and natural approaches to pregnancy and birth.
What does a midwife do during labor?
Midwives tend to the laboring woman and offer some support.
- They monitor the laboring woman and check their vitals
- Keep an eye on progress and make suggestions on strategies to help facilitate birth
- A midwife is the one who does vaginal exams to check on dilation and baby’s position if the laboring woman wants them to
- They monitor the baby’s heartbeat and wellbeing
- Midwives are trained to detect emergencies and they will call for medical help when necessary
- They deliver the baby – unless mom or dad have specified that they want to catch the baby
The midwife is the one at your birth who does all of the medical care. They are there to assist you in giving birth. Midwives provide some medications whether at the hospital or at home. Midwives may also offer emotional and physical support during labor but their priority is the health and safety of mom and baby.
What's a midwife's job after birth?
After you give birth the midwife is there to care for you and your baby. They will continue to monitor you and watch for too much blood loss and check for any vaginal tearing. They can also do stitches if the tearing isn’t severe.
Midwives make sure that you and baby are healthy after birth. They will do newborn screening – like weighing them, apgar tests, etc. They also assist with breastfeeding.
They also do more appointments with you and baby over the next few weeks.
What is a doula?
A doula is a non medical person who offers informational, emotional and physical support to families during pregnancy, birth and the immediate postpartum period. Doulas help women have the birth experience that they envision. A doula is a support person. If you have a partner, a doula doesn’t replace your partner, they are there to work alongside your partner in supporting you.
What is the doulas role during labor?
When you are in labor a doula is there to offer physical and emotional support such as
- Offer reassurance, motivation and words of encouragement
- Massage
- Apply heat or cold packs
- Help you get into positions you are comfortable with
- Help you get in and out of the bath or shower
- Makes sure you are drinking plenty of water – and if you’re at home making sure you’re eating so you have energy to continue to labor
- Help with breathing techniques
- Give counter pressure
- Support your partner
- If you are having a hospital birth, a doula is there to advocate for you with the hospital staff. During pregnancy you should discuss in depth your birth wishes to your doula so that during birth they can help facilitate the kind of birth that you want so you can focus solely on giving birth
What does a doula do after birth?
Dualas continue to offer support immediately after birth. They may help mom and baby with breastfeeding. A doula will make sure mom gets something to eat, whether that means they go out and order you food or if you’re at home they may cook something. If you have a home birth they may also help your birth team clean up and may even do a load of laundry before they leave.
Typically, you will also have a follow up with your doula a couple of weeks after birth. This is the perfect time to allow you to decompress and reflect on your birth. It is very therapeutic to talk over your birth after you had your baby. Doulas are a great person to talk to about this because they were there with you and they have a lot of knowledge on birth so if you have questions about why your birth happened a certain way or if any emotions come up they can help you navigate through them.
There are also doulas who are specifically postpartum doulas. These doulas will come to your home over the first few weeks postpartum to help care for mom. They will do things like cook nutritious meals, light cleaning, newborn care, help aid in recovery and healing and overall helping the partner and family.
So, what's the difference between a midwife and a doula?
The key takeaway is that a midwife is doing the medical care, a doula is offering support. A doula cannot give medical advice or give any examinations, that is the midwives job.
You can have both a midwife and a doula at your birth. They make great assets for your birth. A doula can also be at your birth if you have a doctor. Midwives and doulas are great whether you are planning a natural, unmedicated birth or not. There are midwives who work in hospitals so you can have something like an epidural for pain relief if desired, and there are midwives who do home births. Doulas can be at hospital births, birth centers and at home births.
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I created Natural and Empowered Birth because I want to help women have a positive birth experience.
I’ve always been fascinated by birth and love hearing other mama’s birth stories. Learning about how women can have a beautiful and empowering birth set me on a path to have one myself and now I want to help women have a great birthing experience too.
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I didn’t know doulas did so much during the whole process and after birth
Thank you for the kind comment! Glad you learned something new from this blog post.