Bo­bie-Lee Dixon

What if there was a way to ac­tu­al­ly en­joy giv­ing birth nat­u­ral­ly? There will still be labour pains, but moth­ers will have com­fort, sup­port and a hap­py and safe de­liv­ery with the help of a doula or labour coach.Doulas are tra­di­tion­al­ly trained fe­male care­givers who pro­vide emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal sup­port to the moth­er-to-be and her part­ner. Doulas are not med­ical pro­fes­sion­als but they of­fer a wide range of com­fort mea­sures dur­ing labour, rang­ing from mas­sages to aro­mather­a­py to con­tin­u­ous re­as­sur­ance and cop­ing tech­niques. The word Doula is Greek in ori­gin and means moth­er­ing the moth­er.

Doulas are rel­a­tive­ly new to T&T and cur­rent­ly on­ly avail­able at pri­vate birth cen­tres.The T&T Guardian re­cent­ly vis­it­ed Mam­a­to­to Re­source and Birth Cen­tre, lo­cat­ed on Clif­ford Street, Bel­mont, where doula train­ing ses­sions have been tak­ing place.Mam­a­to­to, in con­junc­tion with the T&T As­so­ci­a­tion of Mid­wives and the Doula Al­liance of T&T, have start­ed an aware­ness dri­ve to pro­mote nat­ur­al birth, keep­ing the tra­di­tion­al role of the mid­wife alive and ed­u­cat­ing the pub­lic on the doula pro­fes­sion.

Ear­li­er this month, they host­ed a cock­tail re­cep­tion to wel­come mem­bers of the In­ter­na­tion­al Cen­tre for Tra­di­tion­al Child­bear­ing (ICTC). The US-based or­gan­i­sa­tion found­ed by mid­wife and doula, Shafia Mon­roe, was here to con­duct a four-day work­shop on mid­wifery and the role of a doula. In a brief in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, Mon­roe said her or­gan­i­sa­tion has been trav­el­ling through­out the US and oth­er coun­tries to pro­mote the tra­di­tion­al role of the mid­wife and to teach the doula pro­fes­sion. She said celebri­ties like Erykah Badu, who is a prac­tic­ing doula, have even be­come spokes­men for the or­gan­i­sa­tion."Our mis­sion is main­ly to en­hance the health and well be­ing of women and their fam­i­lies and to pre­serve the tra­di­tion­al role­of the mid­wife. We are re­al­ly hop­ing your gov­ern­ment will see the ur­gent need to have doulas at­tached to pub­lic birth cen­tres as they play a vi­tal role in achiev­ing safe and stress free de­liv­er­ies," said Mon­roe.

Hu­man re­source con­sul­tant and doula train­er at Mam­a­to­to, Mang­hani­ta Kem­padoo, said doulas just make sense. "Hav­ing a doula present dur­ing labour is some­thing that every moth­er should be able to have. A doula's role dur­ing a woman's labour and birthing process is very im­por­tant in help­ing her to stay re­laxed as in­tense pain is in­volved. "We are there to en­sure the best re­lax­ation tech­niques are ap­plied in a sit­u­a­tion that may seem dif­fi­cult for that to be achieved. Go­ing through labour can be very trau­mat­ic. You will of­ten hear some of the hor­ror sto­ries from women about their labour and birthing ex­pe­ri­ence, and that shouldn't be. This is sup­posed to be the most won­der­ful and mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ence a moth­er has," said Kem­padoo.

The Guyanese na­tion­al, who lived in Lon­don for many years, said she be­came a doula af­ter the birth of her first grand­child."A doula is there with moth­er from the mo­ment her con­trac­tions be­gin to af­ter her ba­by has its first feed–pro­vid­ing emo­tion­al sup­port, phys­i­cal com­fort and an ob­jec­tive view point," said Kem­padoo.

She said dur­ing labour if a moth­er wants to lis­ten to mu­sic or light can­dles to keep her re­laxed, a doula en­sures this is done."Dur­ing labour your in­stincts are al­so very much on point, so a moth­er will usu­al­ly know what she is feel­ing or what will bring her a bit of com­fort," said Kem­padoo.She was al­so quick to point out that a doula does not re­place the moth­er's part­ner or clin­i­cal care provider. Where nec­es­sary, a doula fa­cil­i­tates com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the labour­ing woman and her part­ner to as­sist him/her to re­main con­tin­u­ous­ly ob­jec­tive, calm and sup­port­ive. This in­cludes prompt­ing them to par­tic­i­pate."As a doula you will be on call 24 hours. The pro­fes­sion is no nine to five job, which is why the screen­ing process is very strict and a doula must ac­tu­al­ly en­joy what she does," Kem­padoo said.

She said doulas recog­nise child­birth as a key life ex­pe­ri­ence and they sup­port moth­ers-to-be in the mak­ing of a birth plan."She per­ceives her role as nur­tur­ing and pro­tect­ing the woman's mem­o­ry of the birth ex­pe­ri­ence. It is not a pro­fes­sion to be tak­en light­ly, it is re­al­ly a great re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, but one that is un­doubt­ed­ly re­ward­ing," said Kem­padoo.Moth­ers giv­ing birth at Mam­a­to­to pay a stan­dard fee of $700, while at oth­er places, the prices range from $800 to $1500, but this de­pends on the re­quests made by the ex­pec­tant moth­er.Mam­a­to­to has trained over 30 doulas and more are ex­pect­ed to be trained in Sep­tem­ber. All doulas are reg­is­tered with the Doula Or­gan­i­sa­tion of North Amer­i­ca (DONA).

For more in­for­ma­tion on be­com­ing a doula or hav­ing doula help dur­ing your labour, child­birth and the post­na­tal pe­ri­od con­tact 707-5279 or send e-mails to DoulaAllinceTT@gmail.com. Al­so find them on face­book@Doula Al­liance of T&T.

Side Bar:

About Mam­a­to­to

Mam­a­to­to Re­source and Birth Cen­tre was found­ed in 2004 by in­de­pen­dent mid­wives

De­brah Lewis, Mar­i­lyn Stollmey­er, Di­anne Williams, Si­mone Clarke and Re­nee Et­ta­to.

It be­came ful­ly op­er­a­tional in 2008, be­ing the first in­sti­tu­tion of its kind in T&T and the Caribbean.

Mam­a­to­to a Swahili word mean­ing moth­er and ba­by is al­so the acronym for Moth­ers and Mid­wives Al­li­nace of T&T.

The home-like birth cen­tre of­fers fam­i­ly-cen­tred care which is tai­lored to suit each woman and her fam­i­ly's cul­tur­al needs and per­son­al choic­es. The pri­vate­ly fund­ed or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so be­lieves in mak­ing its ser­vices avail­able to all, which is why they of­fer pay­ment plans and even grant full spon­sor­ship through its pro bono pro­gramme, to moth­ers who are fi­nan­cial­ly un­able to re­ceive them.

To make the birthing ex­pe­ri­ence more com­fort­able and mem­o­rable, the in­sti­tu­tion of­fers the fol­low­ing:

�2Pri­vate birthing rooms

�2The use of wa­ter dur­ing labour and/or birth

�2 Birthing stool/birthing ball

�2Al­ter­na­tive pain-re­lief and com­fort meth­ods

�2Free­dom to move about and as­sume the po­si­tion of choice in labour and birth

�2Ear­ly ma­ter­nal/in­fant-skin-to-skin con­tact to en­cour­age bond­ing and breast­feed­ing.

Mam­a­to­to is al­so a mul­ti­me­dia re­source cen­tre which is open to the pub­lic and pro­vides ac­cess to print and au­dio­vi­su­al ma­te­ri­als re­gard­ing re­pro­duc­tive health and breast­feed­ing. For its on­go­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al ses­sions, train­ing and out­reach work­shops, top­ics such as child­birth prepa­ra­tion class­es, par­ent­ing skills, teen sex­u­al­i­ty, breast­feed­ing and doula and labour sup­port are cov­ered.

For more in­for­ma­tion on Mam­a­to­to Re­source and Birth Cen­tre log on to www.mam­a­to­to.net or send e-mails to in­fo@mam­a­to­to.net. Read more al­so on Face­book by typ­ing Mam­a­to­to Re­source and Birth Cen­tre. And call 621-5712