What a Doula Actually Does (It's Not What You Think)- with Rachel Bailey

What a Doula Really Does: Prenatal, Birth & Postpartum Support (with Birmingham Doula Rachel Bailey)

Okay, y'all — this episode is one every expecting parent needs to hear. I'm sitting down with Birmingham-area doula Rachel Bailey of Eleison Doula Services to talk about what a doula actually does, because I promise it's so much more than "just being there" during labor.

Rachel walks us through what real support looks like from pregnancy through those early postpartum weeks, helping families write flexible birth plans, navigate hospital routines, and get hands-on comfort support during labor (without stepping on your partner's role!). We also get into postpartum priorities like newborn care, meals, and even overnight support so exhausted parents can actually sleep. Rachel shares how she makes space for faith and spirituality in the birth space, when to reach out if you're considering a doula, and the questions to ask to find the right fit for your family.

If you're pregnant, hoping to be, or just want to understand what support during birth can really look like — pull up a seat, this one's for you.

00:00 Welcome and Disclaimer
00:52 Meet the Doula
04:40 What Doulas Do Daily
07:35 Supporting Different Birth Paths
10:18 Birth Doula Support Breakdown
14:57 Postpartum and Overnight Care
18:46 When to Hire a Doula
20:41 Childbirth Class Options
23:52 Faith and Spiritual Support
31:59 Choosing the Right Doula
37:44 Root Desires and Birth Goals
39:50 Class Pitch and Wrap Up
43:00 Final Thanks and Subscribe

Connect with Rachel: 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eleisondoula/

Website: https://eleisondoula.com/

Birth Classes: https://eleisondoula.com/childbirth-classes-birmingham-al/

Connect with Amanda

🌿 Website: https://www.saltandlight-slp.com/

📖 Navigating Tongue Ties e-book: https://www.saltandlight-slp.com/product-page/navigating-tongue-ties

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saltandlightspeechtherapy/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saltandlight.slp

Transcript

Amanda 0:03

Hey guys, I'm Amanda Mavrakos, and I am your host here on Root Cause Conversations, where we're talking about speech therapy, tongue ties, oral health, plus diving into faith, family, and wellness for people of all ages. I am a speech language pathologist and a small business owner behind Salt and Light Speech and Language Resources here in Alabama. A heads up, this podcast is for educational purposes only. It is not individualized medical advice, and it is not meant to diagnose or treat anything. So always loop in your own provider for anything specific to you or your child. Thank you so much for pulling up a seat at the table and joining us today. So let's just get into it. Okay, mamas. Whether you're pregnant right now or you've had your baby in the last 10 years, nobody really tells you what it truly looks like to have someone in your corner throughout that whole journey. Through pregnancy, birth, and especially those first few weeks after you get home. Today we're talking with Rachel Bailey, a doula here in the Birmingham area and the owner of Elaison Doula about what real support looks like before, during, and after birth, and how to know if a doula is the right fit for your family. Hey Rachel, thank you so much for coming on the podcast with us today. Good morning. Thanks so much for inviting me. Yeah, of course. So can you just tell our audience a little bit about you, what you do, and like what a typical day would look like as a doula?

Rachel 1:45

Yeah. That last part is a little hard because there really isn't a typical day, but I can tell you about my last 24 hours, maybe, or some of my days, what some of my days can look like. That's perfect. Um, so yeah, I'm Rachel. I I myself am a mom of four now grown or more or less grown children. They're 19 to 26 years old. And I have been working as a doula for the last six years here in Birmingham, but I previously was also teaching public health at Stanford University, and I've just gone full-time as a doula as of January of this year. So last seven months, I've only been working as a doula. I do birth support, postpartum support, and childbirth education for families. So what that looks like is families ideally will contact me while they're pregnant, and I'll come alongside them for that whole journey. So helping them to prepare, uh, learning what to expect from birth and also from having a newborn baby in their house, figuring out what their priorities and their values are when it comes to how they want this birth experience to go, how they want their first days of having a baby in the home and their kind of first days of parenthood are going to look like. And then helping them to figure out how are we going to make that happen. So a lot of, you know, most people in our culture today have probably never been to a birth before their own birth or their their partner's birth. Whereas it seems like in the past, maybe we would have been at our sisters or our neighbors or our cousins, you know, so like we used to have a lot more familiarity with what that process looks like. And for a lot of people that I deal with now, it's not something that they've ever uh uh seen or or been a part of until it's on them and they know that they're gonna have to experience this in the the deepest possible way. It's kind of a crash course, you know. And so I'd I'd work with them to help break that down and and make that experience more approachable and also figure out how they want to integrate their values or their faith or their preference, you know, their preferences and priorities for how they want to be treated in a kind of a medicalized environment, or if they want to try to make it a less medicalized um environment where they're gonna give birth. So I'll come alongside and then accompany them during labor and at the birth and provide hands-on support. And then in the postpartum period, I can come out also and help teach them how to take care of the baby, help with the mom's recovery, provide infant care so that mom can get some rest during those crucial early days, and then be a more effective parent during the time when I'm not there. So that's that's kind of those are the things that I do. A typical day. So my day, the last 24 hours included a phone call from a client who is not due for several more weeks, but she was afraid that her water had broken, and so she wanted to talk through like what does she need to do for that? And so turns out that's not what it was, but we had some texts back and forth throughout the night to kind of get that figured out and advise her on what she needed to do. I spent the night at a family's house that has an almost five-week-old infant now helping to take care of him so the parents could get some sleep. Then I came home and we have a new puppy, so I got to come home and uh be a doula for the little puppy and take him out to to do what needed to be done. And then later today, I'm gonna be doing a prenatal appointment with another birth client to help write her birth plan and figure those things out. And I'll be getting ready for my childbirth class I'll be teaching next week. There's a lot of different things that all fit together, but a lot of different parts, and every day is gonna look a little bit different depending on who's having a baby and where we are in that process.

Amanda 5:49

It sounds like you do a great job of just meeting people where they are in the moment and a lot of moving parts there, Rachel, like the pregnancy, the birth, and then just being available after the birth to support the parents. I can imagine that's amazing and such a blessing to so many people that you will come and spend the night impress.

Rachel 6:11

Sometimes I say it's like having your mom, but without the emotional baggage of that some of us have with our moms.

Amanda 6:17

So yeah, I can see how that would be. You're just there to support them and making sure they feel good about the choices that they've made, but also just guiding them in a gentle way and helping them make choices and decisions that are best for their family and their body in that moment. Exactly. Yeah.

Rachel 6:33

I'm not gonna come in and tell you doing it wrong, but I will come in if you ask me and show you how I would do something or tell you what the current guidelines about safe sleep is, and then you make your own decision about whether you want to follow that guideline or do things in a different way. So I'm I will support the family with whatever decisions they make and wherever they are in that process. It's a really, you know, we have to there's no judgment in that because we all are where we are, and I remember being a new parent where everything is new, and partly that's really exciting because you're on this adventure and you're the one that gets to decide how do we want to do this, and we don't have to replicate what any other families did or the way that I did it when I was a child. But maybe there are things that you want to bring in from your own childhood and preserve those traditions, and so we we really work a lot with families to figure out how do they want to embark on this new adventure.

Amanda 7:33

That sounds amazing, and I feel like even if you're a parent and you're on child number three, like each child in the season that you're in is gonna look different. And maybe you can help me here. I'm sure that as you go through each birth, you learn something new and you make decisions about what worked and what didn't work. And maybe you just start, you know, deep diving some things and like, hey, I did this the last time. It's not that it didn't work, it's just that this time I want to do a more natural approach or a holistic approach, or for the last two, I had my baby in the hospital. And this time, I think I might want to have my baby at home. How can you support parents on that decision, especially with making the transition from maybe a few hospital births to what that looks like in the home environment?

Rachel 8:19

And the other situation that I get a lot is a V back. So a mom that had a C-section previously that wants to have a vaginal birth this time. So that that's a little bit similar to the situation you described where maybe they were in a hospital and now they want to move home. Although in the state of Alabama, legally you can't have a V back at home. That would have to be a hospital birth. So we talk about kind of what what options you might have and how we can best support what it is that that you would want to do. But yeah, a lot of the moms that I talk to when we're doing the initial consultation or when we're doing the birth planning, they will a big part of that process is kind of opening up and unraveling if you've had a baby before, what happened last time and what did you like about that experience? What did you maybe not like about that experience? Or maybe there were things that were fine with that experience, but you would like to try to do it a different way. So a lot of times I'll get a mom that was like, I didn't really know any better that I had options, and so I just went in and I did the epidural and I did the the blah blah kind of went through the standard routine, and that was okay. But I would really like to see what it feels like to go unmedicated. And so then we can talk about what do we need to do to help support your physiology and keep you grounded in the present moment and all the things that really any laboring mom needs, whether she has an epidural or other medication or not, but especially when you are going unmedicated, then it's really important to be able to support what the body is trying to do as well as understand those hospital routines and which ones are truly necessary and which ones maybe should be considered optional, but the hospital doesn't necessarily let you know that those are actually optional. And so helping people to figure out how they're gonna navigate that, yeah.

Amanda 10:13

And that's important. Yeah, that's really important for sure. Can you tell us a little bit about so if we have a mom who's never worked with a doula before, can you break down what your support is actually gonna look like for that person, like before, during, and after birth? So as they go on this journey with you, can you tell us a little bit about what that would look like?

Rachel 10:38

Yeah. So if you hire me as your birth doula, then what that will look like is we will get to know each other really well during the pregnancy. I will come out to, usually I come out to your home, although some people would prefer to meet in a different location, and that's fine too, typically twice. So I like to meet once kind of during the second trimester and start to talk about your birth plan and what are the values that are driving that, what are the priorities and the preferences, and how do we write out a birth plan so that those priorities are really highlighted and that we can strategize for how do you have the best likelihood of having the type of birth and the outcome that you want. But also in the event that we need to pivot in some way because labor unfolds unpredictably, how do we do that in a way that preserves as much of what you told me was important to you as possible? So that by the end of the experience you feel like you were in the driver's seat. That's really my goal at every birth for every client. So we'll talk about that in a prenatal appointment. We'll really dive in and explore your values and your preferences and any previous experiences, whether you've given birth or maybe other experiences with medical care or health issues or whatever it is. It's gonna look different for everybody, but we'll dive into that. The second prenatal appointment, I like to do a little bit closer to your due date so that we can really practice positions for labor, comfort measures for pain relief. And even if somebody is planning to go in and get the epidural, you're gonna need that for early labor before you you have the epidural. And I like to teach both parents together so that they can do a lot of the early labor support together at home before if they're going to the hospital before they get to the hospital, or if they're staying at home before their duel or their midwife could get there as well. They have some tools in their toolbox. In between those appointments, I always tell my clients they have my phone number, they can access me anytime if they have questions or concerns. I like it when they send me a little update after they had their doctor's appointments, just so I kind of know what's going on with the pregnancy, how they're feeling. And then they call me when they go into labor. Or even when they think maybe they're going into labor if they're not quite sure. And so a lot of what a lot of what I do over the phone is like listening to what does somebody sound like when they're having a contraction and say, okay, well, it sounds like we'll probably have some more hours like this. So call me, let's touch base in four hours. Obviously, if anything changes, call me sooner. But and we'll keep up with each other for whatever period of time we need to until they feel like they want some more hands-on support, and then I'll come and meet them. And I really tried hard to work with if they have a husband or a partner that is wanting to provide some hands-on support also to not replace that person because they have a really unique role as the they have that loving relationship where it's going to mean more for him to be the person holding her hand, his face close to her face, saying, I love you, I believe in you. And then maybe I could be the person doing counterpressure on their back to help with the pain management. But I can make suggestions for everybody for how that team process is going to look. And I'll stay with them until the baby's born, and typically maybe an hour or two after the baby's born, I'll stick around to help with the first feed and getting everybody settled, and maybe a meal for mom after the hard work that she's just done, and all of that. And then I'll check in again postpartum, just see how she's doing, kind of debrief from the birth experience. A lot of times, moms have a lot of questions, and their memories of things can be a little fuzzy on certain points, and they may want to talk through what just happened with their bodies and with their baby, and check on how is feeding going, how is their sleep, what are there any red flags already that would suggest maybe referrals to other professionals would be helpful. So that's what birth support looks like. And then I also can do postpartum support in a more in-depth way. So that's a kind of continuation of the birth support. Some families will come to me just for one or the other. Some families don't come to me until after they bring their baby home, and then they're like, oh my gosh, I need to help you. So the postpartum support, I say my priorities for that are first of all mom and her recovery. So physical recovery, emotional processing of the birth experience, processing of how you feel are you feeling overwhelmed about your new role here? Second is the newborn care. So that may look like troubleshooting feeding issues, it may look like showing the family how to give the baby a bath, maybe helping to set up your kind of space in a way that's gonna help you to you know efficiently do the things that you need to do to take care of the baby without having to run upstairs in the house every time you need a diaper or something.

Amanda 16:02

Like sometimes the very simple things, but the things you may not think about in the moment until you're like in it and you're like, oh my gosh, I don't want to handle this.

Rachel 16:11

So that I'm recovering from a C-section and I can't be running up and downstairs every time I need to, so yeah. And then my third priority with the postpartum care is anything else that's getting in the way of priorities one and two. So a lot of times what that will be is folding laundry or doing some dishes or making sure that everybody has a healthy meal that they're gonna eat tonight, and maybe even a set of hands to hold the baby for 20 minutes so they can actually sit down and eat a meal together, because that hasn't happened in weeks. So that's the postpartum. And then I mentioned that can happen during the day where we're probably gonna be more working on how are we working on things together. So that may be where I'm really talking to the parents a lot and we're developing strategies and showing how to calm a colicky baby or all of those things. And then the overnight support is there's an element of that, but it's also much more where I will just come in and how are you doing? How's the baby doing? Okay, go get some rest, and I'll see you in eight hours. And I will take care of the baby for you so that you can really sleep and get some rest.

Amanda 17:19

And then you get a lot of extra baby time there, don't you?

Rachel 17:22

I love that. Yeah, I this is the most fun job on the planet, honestly.

Amanda 17:27

You get to hold babies.

Rachel 17:29

Like babies, yeah. But I also, when I'm not doing overnight care, I really try to I will hold your baby and I will always enjoy holding your baby. But I try to make it not be about me holding your baby. I try to make it more about me helping you to develop that attachment with your own baby.

Amanda 17:49

Maybe taking some other things off the plate so that they can dedicate the time to that. Exactly, yeah.

Rachel 17:55

When I'm even when I'm at the birth, I love it when the parents are like, oh, do you want to hold the baby before you go? And of course I will. And take the picture, and that's great. I love that. But I'm not ever going to ask you to hold your baby because I want you to be holding your baby and soaking up that new baby smell and that hormonal rush of, you know, like that's so important for the parents. And I don't that's not my I did that 20 years ago with my own babies, and I love that time, but it's but I'm not here to get that kind of couple feeling. I'm here to to help make sure that bond is going to be really strongly established for the parents.

Amanda 18:39

That's great that you can do that. And I know people appreciate that so much. I hope so, yeah. Yeah. Just a few questions about the information you just gave us. So you had mentioned that you typically meet with somebody during the second trimester. When do they need to contact you to retain your services? Can you tell me about what that would look like, what that timeline looks like?

Rachel 19:03

So I would say honestly, as soon as you think you might want a doula is a good time to reach out and start talking to doulas. It's not ever too early. I will sometimes talk to people that aren't even pregnant yet, that are just like, I'm thinking about it. I'd like to know what my options might be when we get to that point. And then maybe three or four months later, I hear from them and they're like, hey, guess what? So that's really great. But I also have, like I mentioned, I get parents that will reach out to me that have already brought their baby home, and then all of a sudden they're like, I could use some help here. The only problem with that is I can only take so many clients every month because I want to make sure that I am fully available to the clients that I do take. Absolutely. You might get lucky and find me at a moment when I've got some downtime in my schedule, and I will be more than happy to work with you in that case. But at the moment, for example, we're at the end of July. I am booking for births and postpartum support with due dates in January. I don't have any more availability this calendar in 2026 right now.

unknown 20:10

Okay.

Rachel 20:10

If you're four months pregnant, it's not too early to start that process. And I know it's hard to know what you're gonna want and need that far out, but unfortunately that's kind of the nature of making sure that I can really commit to being available to you means I can't just take as many people as as are gonna be having a baby that month.

Amanda 20:31

Right, because you can't work well and do a good job and provide amazing services for these families if your cup is empty.

Rachel 20:38

Yeah. And if I'm with somebody else, I can't be with you. Right. We but so the what I do where that's not exactly the case is my childbirth classes, which that allows me to help families a little bit more where that can take place kind of in in more of a group context. So the childbirth classes that I teach, they're currently I'm teaching those online, and they there's a self-paced component. So when a family signs up with me for these classes, they get access to a bank and a library of videos that cover pretty much everything you would want or need to know about labor and birth and interventions and what to expect from the process, how to advocate for yourself, all of those things. But it's a lot of content. So I encourage the families to take their time to really go through all of that. But then to help break it down and make it a little bit more manageable. I'm also running alongside that a series of group, kind of live group class sessions that take the modules from that video content and break it down a little bit more. Like, here's the main things that I really think everybody needs to know about, and let's talk about it as a group and answer your questions. And then you can go back and watch or rewatch the videos when you have time if there are specific. Things that you feel like you need to cover in a little bit more depth. So that lets me uh like right now, even though I'm only booking births and postpartum for January outward, because I'm already booked for the rest of this year. If you have a due date that's earlier than January and you still want some support, you could join that class. And then even though I'm not gonna be able to make it to your birth, we can get to know each other and I can provide you with the tools and the information and the practice in how to use these comfort measures and how to advocate for yourself in the medical setting that you can then take with you either without a doula or maybe if you find a different doula that that knowledge and information is gonna be available to you.

Amanda 22:41

Okay. Yeah, and you do a great job of posting really helpful information on your Instagram page, letting people know you're available for births. And I did notice that you have a childbirth class. I think it's August the 18th. So we will definitely link that down below in our show notes so that people could reach out to you and make contact with you regarding that childbirth class, but also just provide your website and Instagram so that people could follow you in case they're interested in your services or just want to learn more about what you do.

Rachel 23:12

Yeah, and I post a lot of tips about, you know, even if they're not using me as their doula, I'm I try to post some tips frequently about, I've just did a little series about things your OB may not have told you that are important to understand because I saw that. Yeah. Or how some some of my thoughts about how do we incorporate faith and spirituality into the birth experience and maybe more than than people think about initially.

Amanda 23:39

Yes, it's not just about praise music.

Rachel 23:41

Yeah. I love the praise music, and by all means bring whatever playlist is going to be motivating and inspiring for you. But we can take it deeper for the people that that are inclined to do that for sure.

Amanda 23:52

Yeah, and I think that's great that you talk about your faith and you have woven that into your birth support, just the spiritual role of the Lord on this journey, because it is a beautiful and an amazing journey. So if somebody's working with you, what does that look like in practice? So how are you making space for mom's faith?

Rachel 24:13

Yeah. So first of all, I want to say I have a strong faith myself that I love to share with moms that are open to that. But all of the support, it's not about me. It's about meeting you where you are at. So my first point of contact with a new client is gonna, or you know, when we sit down and start talking about your birth plan, for example. I have a little activity I like to do with the the two parents where there's a list of a whole bunch of words that people might use to describe how they think about birth. And so there's and the sheets divided into two parts. So the top part is I think of birth as, and they just go through and they check which words apply to them. And then the bottom says, My partner thinks about birth as, and they go through and they check what they think their partner would say, and their partner is doing the same thing, and then they kind of compare their answers, which usually they're a lot more or less aligned. Every once in a while, there's some surprises, which that can be a great conversation starter. Like I've had a bit. I I remember one time I had a husband that said, Oh my gosh, I had no idea that you were afraid of giving birth to his wife. And it was like, okay, that was really important for us to uncover right now.

Amanda 25:33

Yeah, you definitely need to unpack that information for sure.

Rachel 25:35

Exactly, yeah. But one of the words that is on this list of words is I think of birth as a spiritual experience. So whenever somebody checks that, and pretty frequently people do check that box, then my question is, okay, what does that mean to you? Because it can be that word can mean a whole lot of different things. Yes, it can. For some people, it's in a very specific faith tradition. So I'm Christian, and so I think of birth as a spiritual experience, meaning I'm thinking about the Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus Christ, and that was how God became a human. And what does all of that mean? And how do we participate in that experience in our own way, with that as our kind of like spiritual role model? That's not a perspective that everybody is gonna bring to it, but then that's fine. That's um that's totally fine. But for the people that are thinking in that way, like being able to develop that awareness is so powerful when they then are giving birth. For other people, it's probably one of the most common things I hear is like, well, it's bringing a new life into the world, which just puts you into contact with this amazing, really like cosmic reality. And how could you not see that as a spiritual experience? So we talk about what does that mean and how do how does that feel to be become aware of your we're very small and yet we're participating in this this very powerful dynamic. And so, how do we how do we bring that awareness to the practices that we're then going to be using for grounding in labor? Are there prayers that you want to bring into that experience? And if somebody hasn't thought about that yet, then we can start talking about what are the prayers that you find powerful in your life right now, and how can we use that in a way that's going to be meaningful for you in that birth experience? So when I'm at a birth with a family and they're in labor, I might suggest, okay, it's looking like we have a little bit of calm right now, before soon it'll be probably time to push. So maybe this would be a good time for if you wanted to pray. Yes. And I can pray with the family and and or for the family, and I will do that. But also a lot of times they want to lead their own prayers, and and absolutely I encourage that. But sometimes just reminding people to this is a good time to pause and to do that, which you have told me previously is something that's important to you, but you can get swept away in the excitement and the in the emotions of it all. Yeah, and and just in the the busyness of like everything that's happening, but you can forget things that you said were important to you previously, and so that part of my job is to remind families of okay, you said this was important, and now's a good time to do that. I like to help moms and families figure out if there are short phrases that they can use kind of on a repetitive basis during contractions. So if they want that to be a prayer, it might be something very brief, like a short verse from the Psalms, or even something as simple as Lord have mercy that they can repeat kind of on what do you call it, the auto, like remote. Yeah, replay. Yeah, that yeah. Yeah. And sometimes it it may be too difficult for the mom that's in labor to vocalize those things, but maybe her husband or maybe me can s do that for them as I'm watching them read through a contraction. So maybe like and I'll help to model that in deep in breath. Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy. And so that's that kind of becomes almost like the pulse of the labor. Like a little mantra. Yeah, and we can use affirmations, but lots of people are like writing and selling affirmation, birth affirmation cards you can find that can have like pretty paintings on them, and those are great to have in your environment also. But how can we use those to become part of the rhythm? You know, keeping a kind of rhythm to how you're engaging with the rhythm of the contractions that the body is already providing is one of the most helpful techniques that we have for staying grounded in labor and helping kind of the mom to move through that experience without getting overwhelmed. So well. We can that's another way that we can use prayer if that's what the mom wants to do. It can also be something as simple as counting. I can count your breaths out loud as a way to just give you something to kind of ground and focus on. So it doesn't always have to be something that we think of as faith-based in an in an over-the-top way.

Amanda 30:28

I know the families that you work with appreciate you honoring that and being supportive of it and incorporating that into the support that you provide them. As a person of faith, too, I thank you for doing that as well. Because I can imagine it's really meaningful. It's a beautiful experience. And so, you know, being able to invite the Lord into that and just be present, I'm sure, is life-giving to the families that you work with.

Rachel 30:52

And it's not just for Christians, also. I am Christian and I approach it myself from that perspective, but I've supported Muslim families and Hindu families, and they will have their own. It's got every spiritual tradition has some type of practice that encourages kind of going deeper into the self and reaching out towards the divine or the cosmic or, you know. And so how can we tap into that in a way that's going to be meaningful to that family is is important.

Amanda 31:26

Yeah, and thank you for clarifying that because I know that you want to support families regardless of their beliefs or their faiths, and and that you can meet different people of different religions or beliefs where they are and just continue to offer that support. So I know that's just so meaningful for everyone that you support on this journey.

Rachel 31:46

But I also really love it when when we find that there is a kind of commonality in what our faith is, then that that allows that to be even more deep and enriched. So that's wonderful too.

Amanda 31:58

Yes, absolutely. We've got a lot of people listening today. And so if somebody is pregnant and they're listening to this and or they're thinking about being pregnant, like maybe they want to do this next year, you know? But like you said, they need to start looking for doulas and talking to different people. So if they're gonna reach out to a couple of doulas, what are three things that you think they should ask to make sure that person is the right fit for them and the journey that they're on, not necessarily the good or the best one out there, the right fit for them personally.

Rachel 32:34

Yeah, absolutely, because not every doula is gonna be right for every client. And it's it is such an intimate and vulnerable moment in your life that the most important thing is you need to have a doula that you're going to feel very extremely comfortable with. And so I think the first question that I would recommend for families to ask is ask themselves before they even start talking to the doula, how do I want to feel my birth experience? And as I'm preparing for my birth experience. And when I talk to this person, even if it's a phone call or a Zoom call or if they come out to meet me, do they make me feel the way that I want to feel? Okay. So because some people are gonna want a doula that's more of a like a cheerleader, some, you know, like your best friend. Some people are gonna want a doula that feels more like their mom is with them. Some people are gonna want a doula that doesn't really say much, but is just a kind of quiet presence. Some people are gonna want a doula that is very not afraid to share their opinions and come in and tell you how you should do things and tell your doctor how they should do things. And those are four very different types of personality that you know, and I work really hard as a doula myself to figure out what that client needs and wants and to provide that for them. But some of those traits are gonna come more naturally to me than others, and I might know another doula that's gonna be more I can be very encouraging, but I'm not gonna be a cheerleader. That's not my personality, that's not the vibe that that comes through from me. So if you want someone that's gonna be more like, yeah, that's you're probably gonna find and it's not that I'm the wrong doula for you, but if you're interviewing two or three different doulas, you're gonna find that there is one where you're just like, oh, I've just felt like she gets me. Okay. And I would feel really good being in this person's presence in that moment when I'm naked and things feel crazy. Vulnerable. Yeah. Yeah. So that that's the first really that's two questions because it's how do you want to feel and how does this person make you feel? And if you're not sure how you're gonna want to feel, maybe just start with talking to the doula and do you feel good when you talk to them? Do you feel like they they make you feel good talking about yourself and what you're hoping for from the birth? And you feel confident and comfortable. Those are the biggest things. And then if there are specific things that are really important to you, or maybe aspects of your history or medical history, like maybe you had a previous cesarean and you're hoping to have a V back this time, or maybe you are planning to have a home birth, or you want to take that a particular faith-based experience, you may feel more comfortable having a doula that is able that has specifically developed their experience in that specific area. So if you're wanting to have a VBAC, you may want to ask a doula if they've had any experiences with other moms that have had V-BACs, or maybe they've done some specific training around how to help facilitate that. Have they been to home births before? Have they only been to hospitals, or are they comfortable with the kind of prayer that you are planning to do during your birth? So you can kind of tailor those questions to specific things that you feel like are important to you. The biggest thing is there's not gonna be one size fits all. So figure out what is important to you. And if you're not sure, then maybe even ask your doula, like how can they, how will they help you figure out what's important to you? And you'll just find as you're conversing with the person that some people are gonna make you feel really at ease in thinking about that, and some people are gonna just feel a little bit more awkward, and that's okay, but maybe that means they're not the right doula for you.

Amanda 36:39

Okay, yeah, those are all really great and helpful because it's such an intimate journey for the mom and for the partner that's there. And so I think, you know, maybe interviewing three or four would probably be a great place to start, even as you're thinking about your pregnancy and who you want to walk with through it, and having the different perspectives of these four people that you interview may help you personally decide, okay, well, how do I want to feel? You know, I mean, because especially I I can imagine if it's your first birth, you're not sure how you want to feel.

Rachel 37:17

And we're trained to say, of course, I just want a healthy baby. Yes. And of course, that is what we all want. Yes. That's that doesn't it doesn't have to be I just want you can want more than that from the experience, also.

Amanda 37:31

You can want a lot more from the experience. And I can imagine that the people that interview you, you you learn a lot from them too, and it kind of helps you navigate the journey with them as well.

Rachel 37:43

Um I talk to a lot of first-time pregnant moms that will say things like, I would like to go unmedicated, but I'm afraid to say that's what I want, because then I might be disappointed if I don't get it. Yeah. And that's a very real and valid way to feel. But I my hope is that when you have a dual coming along with you, both for the childbirth education and then also for the support during birth, that we can make it like you don't have to be afraid to say this is what you want. We can work to towards getting that goal, but also we can work towards let's unpack it a little bit. I love that your whole podcast is about root causes and like pulling back the layers. So let's go a few layers deeper. And why is it that you want that unmedicated birth? It's a lot of times then what I hear is, oh, I want to experience the power of what my body is able to do, or I want to feel like I was being listened to and not just had this kind of like medicalized procedures done to me that I didn't have any control over. So that gives us something that we can work with when maybe there is something that happens in the labor where that original plan of totally unmedicated isn't gonna be safe, or maybe you change your mind about pain relief medication or something like that. But how can we still get you what that root desire was? Saying I want it unmedicated. Actually, unmedicated is not the goal in and of itself. The goal in and of itself is that you can experience the depth of the power of what your body is capable of doing. Okay, let's work towards that then. So you don't have to be afraid to have those desires from your birth experience.

Amanda 39:34

Yeah, that's beautiful and so special. And uh, I just love what you do. I'm envious now.

Rachel 39:40

Oh, thank you. The world needs more good doulas, so just as much as it needs more good SLPs. Thanks.

Amanda 39:48

Thanks. I appreciate that. So before we wrap up today, is there anything else you want to share with our audience? Like something that we haven't talked about, something that's on your heart, or maybe just a takeaway, or maybe about your upcoming birth class?

Rachel 40:05

Oh, yeah, I'd love to put in a little pitch for the upcoming birth class. As you mentioned, it does start August 18th. But families that, if you contact me today and say I'd like to sign up for this class, I can get you access today to the videos from that self-paced portion of the curriculum. And then the classes, the live classes, those that's the part that starts August 18th. So it's not too early to go ahead and get started with that. If you're like just really excited about learning all about birth, you can do that right now. Okay. So, and I I say I'm enrolling families with October to March due dates. That's flexible, but you probably will want about that much time to really be able to go through all of the information and the content and be able to internalize that and process that and help you to make your own plans and strategies. So if you're due in September, absolutely love to talk to you and love to have you in the class, but you'll get the most out of it if you can have take you know a good eight weeks or so to get through that information before your due date. And I just really encourage people to follow up, follow me on socials or reach out and get in touch with me. I love talking to pregnant families and moms and see how we can support you, or if you're not in Birmingham or you're not due at a time that I've got availability. I also network a lot with other dualists and midwives and professionals and would love to just learn more about where families are coming from and how we can help connect them with the support that they need.

Amanda 41:35

That is so great. I love that you do that. I do that at my practice too. If we can't help you, we at least want to point you in the right direction and give you some resources. So that's amazing that you take the time out to do that with those families. Thank you so much.

Rachel 41:48

Well, I know how you and I met in the first place was through a network of professionals that are helping to connect families with the right kind of support, but that we're all coming from a similar perspective in terms of what is our approach and how do we how do we try to support families where they are and understand the kind of you know, looking into let's explore deeper what's going on. So it's it's great to have a network of like-minded practitioners that that we can refer around to. So thank you for being part of that too.

Amanda 42:17

Oh, great, yeah, absolutely. I think it's been a wonderful experience, and I really appreciate your expertise and taking time to come on this podcast today and talk to our audience about what you do. What I'm gonna do is I'll link in the show notes, I'll link your website, your Instagram, and a link for the upcoming birth class in August so that people have a way to get in touch with you and follow you on social media. I encourage everybody to follow Rachel on Instagram. I've learned so much about birth and what Adula does because I really didn't know. And so this has been a learning experience for me too. And I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today. Thank you so much. It's been so much fun talking this morning. Thank you for joining us on our Root Cause Conversations podcast today. If this episode gave you something to think about, please do me a favor and hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you've got a few extra seconds, download it and share it with a friend who you think might need it today. You never know who's sitting with these exact questions that we talked about in our episode. I've got everything we mentioned, plus more, on today's guest and all the ways that you can connect with me sitting right below in the show notes. So make sure you check those out. And if you're still short on answers after today, I am praying you get the wisdom you need whenever and however you need it. Come find me over on Instagram and I will catch you guys next time.