Qualitative Research Summary

As a doula, I provide educational, physical, and emotional support to clients in a unique and customizable manner. This past year I have continued my education and gained valuable experience by supporting multiple families throughout pregnancy, childbirth, and into postpartum.

The author is a nurse in a level two trauma facility in a community of approximately fifty thousand people in Oregon. The community is a college-town surrounded by a large agricultural area. There is a minimal ethnic diversity within the community. The diversity present occurs mainly from internationally students and faculty from the college. There is a growing population of women who desire low interventional births in the community. The author has worked on the labor and delivery unit of the hospital for the last 14 years. The hospital is the only one in the area to offer trial of labor services to women who have previously undergone a cesarean section. The unit on average experiences around 1000 deliveries annually.

A postpartum doula services are designed to be able to assist in the physical and emotional care of mothers and families in the daysand nights, weeks and months following the birth/adoption of a child. Postpartum doulas are professionals experienced in:

The doulas purpose is to help women have a safe, memorable and empowering birthing experience, regardless of what that means for the individual woman. For women who have decided to have a medicated birth, the doula will offer emotional support, informational support and comfort measures through labor and the administration of medications.

On reading this article and identifying the study, there was a clear insight on how death and dying, and even improved health, impacted those nurses (Conte, 2014). Nurses, who worked closely with their patients, through the perils and suffering, culminating of death and losses, had grief not readily explored to enable that comfort zone (Conte, 2014).

Providing an effective care and support to the patient and for their babies during labour

We have heard of people being hired as professional bridesmaids, but what about people being hired as professional doulas. Just like it may sound weird to have a stranger in a wedding party, it may sound weirder to have a stranger in the birthing room. However, both professionals offer support during monumental events, and can make a huge impact on experiences. A birth doula is a woman who is hired to provide continuous support to a mother before, during, and immediately after childbirth. Over time, a doula builds a relationship with the mother to know exactly what environment and support her, her loved ones, and her midwife would need.

I have always been interested in women’s health and after taking a course at Cal called Evolutionary Medicine I was introduced to what a Doula was. Since then I have been interested in the work that doulas do as I believe that providing support and care for pregnant women is pivotal for both the baby and mother’s health. My goal is to learn how to help support a mother by gaining the necessary clinical skills. I also wish to exercise my ability to speak Spanish and am particularly eager to be able to work with Latina women. I am excited to be a part of a team and to be in an environment that allows me to really learn about female prenatal/postnatal care and everything in between. I realize that the work will be challenging but I am excited

A doula is a professional that provides judgement free informative, emotional, and physical care to pregnant woman and their families through the pregnancy, birth, and postpartum time.

Next, a non-hospital birth usually has midwifery or Doula. Midwifery is a profession in which providers take care of pregnant women during her labor and birth and during the postpartum period. Assisting the mother with the child after it is born. According to “Human Sexuality: Diversity in Contemporary America,” midwives attends the majority of births. Midwives are qualified for routine deliveries and minor medical emergencies; often operating as part of a medical term. As Cara Muhlhahn, a certified nurse midwife stated in “Business of Being Born,” she would rather be in the home of the patient so she would feel comfortable. And most women who have midwives are comfortable because they are in the privacy of their own home giving birth to their child and they feel empowered instead of the powerless vibe in a hospital. A Doula, on the other hand, does not have to make clinical decisions. Doulas offer emotional support and manage pain using massage, acupressure, and birthing positions; making it easier for the mother to cope with her complications. According to “Mothering the Mother: How a Doula Can Help You Have a Shorter, Easier and Healthier Birth,” a Doula is a Greek word that literally means a woman who has experience that can help other women. Klaus Kennell and others who have researched the effects of the doula's presence during childbirth have come to define the term as a woman with experience in childbirth who will give the laboring mother emotional, physical and

This community resource utilizes nurses in several different methods in order to help women with postpartum. In this program, nurses are members of the profession because they assess and evaluate the patient needs and communicate with the medical team the care needed to be implemented in order to provide the patient with the proper resources, to promote a successful and positive postpartum experience. As well as working with members of the health care profession to assist the patient for an optimal outcome for the mother and baby.

Critique of Borders et al.’s Study (2013) “Midwives’ Verbal Support of Nulliparous Women in Second-Stage Labor”

Finding out you are pregnant is one of the most exciting and often times scary moments for a woman. After the initial excitement of being pregnant wares off, many woman are left with a lot of fear, anxiety, and apprehension, of their impeding birth. I know when I was pregnant with my first child, I initially had a lot of hear and anxiety about giving birth. It wasn’t until I started doing research on how I wanted to give birth that I started to feel at ease. I decided that for me the best choice was to give birth with a midwife and to have a doula. I choice to use a midwife because I liked the idea of a more traditional birthing method. The midwife I chose had been delivering babies for 20+ years. I liked the idea of using a midwife because they tend to be more client focused and less medically driven. I also chose to use a doula so I had additional support during my labor. So what is a doula?

For hundred of years, women have wrestled with their womanhood, bodies, and what it means to be a woman in our society. Being a woman comes with a wonderful and empowering responsibility--giving birth. What sets us aside from other countries is that the process and expectations of giving birth has changed in our society; coming from midwifery, as it has always been since the early times, to hospitals where it is now expected to give birth at. Midwifery was a common practice in delivering babies in

Identify the compelling arguments for and against one of the following policies in a developing country. Include the perspective of the host country itself, the MNE, and the local workforce affected. Choose one