Prenatal & Birth Doula Services in New York City
Angelica Kennedy,
DONA International Certified Birth Doula
Integrative Lactation and Feeding Specialist
Labor support during your birthing journey.
Based out of Sunnyside, Queens, NYC
What is a doula?
A doula is a person who supplies physical, emotional, psychological, and informational support to a birthing person.
A doula facilitates communication, they provide information, and they amplify the birthing person and their partners’ voice during their birth journey.
We can do these things in a number of ways, but the most common strategies are by:
Offering information and reassurance during prenatal visits, where we discuss a birth plan together, and focus on goals, desires, and expectations for your birth
Referring you to excellent local resources that help you prepare for your journey as parents; whether that’s through child birth education classes, breastfeeding classes, trauma support, genetic counseling, hypnobirthing, and many others
Availability through phone/video calls and text messages during your pregnancy to answer questions or discuss thoughts
On-call support during the end of your pregnancy for when you go into labor
Continuous, in-person* support during labor, delivery, and your first post-partum hour (*or virtual via FaceTime, depending on Covid rules at your hospital or your personal preferences)
Informing, involving and assuring birth partners
A follow up post-partum visit to discuss your experience, follow up care, and additional resources geared toward new parents
What does a doula not do?
While many of us have in depth medical knowledge as part of our training, we are not health care workers, and cannot give medical advice. However, we will help you understand the medical information being presented, so that you can make informed, respected, integrity based decisions about your care.
Why use a doula?
The presence of a doula lowers the rates of c-sections, shortens labor, decreases the need for medical interventions, and increases your overall feeling of control, happiness, and satisfaction with your birth experience.
While a doula is not a medical doctor or clinician, the presence of a doula is statistically proven to directly impact medical and clinical outcomes in birth. The presence of a doula lowers the rates of c-sections (up to 37%, according to some studies), shortens labor, decreases the need for medical interventions, and increases your overall feeling of control, happiness, and satisfaction with your birth experience. Interested in the actual break down of those statistics? Click here.
In simpler terms: in a country where we continue to treat birth as an illness based condition, which (despite medical statistical evidence to the contrary) will often be met with arbitrary medical interventions, we doulas see it as our mission to bring the birth experience back where it belongs: as a wellness based, natural, and joyful event!
The birth of a child is one the most important experiences we will have in our lives, and one we remember, in vivid and crystal clear detail, forever. Most parents can go back and describe their birth stories twenty years later, and still be able to quote their caregivers verbatim. If I were to summarize in one sentence the purpose of this crucial work, it would be for me to give you the gift of a beautiful, positive birth experience.
