Building Your Hospital Birth Skills - Doula Training Course
Doulas and hospital births go together like peanut butter and bananas. They aren’t the first combination you think of but work together deliciously!
Hospital births tend to be the type of birth with the least amount of familiar, direct support. When someone gives birth at home or a birth center, they typically have a smaller group of medical care providers that get to know them throughout their pregnancy. When giving birth at a hospital, parents meet most of their care team the day of their delivery and are in an unfamiliar environment with a slew of intervention options they need to navigate. In a hospital birth, a doula is a consistent support person who a family can expect to attend their full birth, no matter the time of day or how long it goes! They know the pregnant person’s preferences, personality, and family dynamics, and are a chosen person for them to lean on throughout their experience.
Sadly, as a doula, I’ve seen more and more doulas getting burnt out attending hospital births, as they feel overrun and undervalued in the setting, and end up choosing to only attend out-of-hospital-births. I get it… I’ve dealt with my fair share of gaslighting, hostility, and just flat-out ignorance as to the importance of the doula role when interacting with hospital birth providers. BUT… doulas leaving hospital birth cannot be the solution to this problem. 98% of people giving birth do so in a hospital setting. Doula work is community activism, and it is wrong of us to leave 98% of our community high and dry when it comes to vital birth support that can change health outcomes for expecting families.
As a hospital-based birth doula, I found that the more uncomfortable I got with the experiences I was having in hospitals, the more it helped me to dive deeper into training and resources that I can use to support my clients more effectively in hospital birth settings. This education has helped me feel confident in my role in a medicalized birth space so I don’t get burnt out and can better avoid second-hand trauma.
After attending 75+ hospital births in the past 3.5 years, I created the doula training course, “Build Your Hospital Birth Skills - for Doulas.” This course goes in deep on all the skills I have learned and utilized to help my work be more effective in hospital birth settings. This has allowed me to support my clients better, feel confident walking into any labor and delivery unit, and stand up for myself and my clients when I see obstetrical abuse and manipulation happening (helping me avoid second-hand trauma).
This course has over four hours of audio recordings, client resource documents, journal prompts, and lifetime access to a community WhatsApp group where you can get real-time advice from other doulas who have taken the course.
We cover topics such as…
Why are supporting hospital births so important?
How do doula skills differ in a hospital birth setting?
Creating a collaborative environment with your client’s medical care team.
How to work alongside interventions such as epidurals, inductions, and c-sections (so many practical skills in this section!)
Advocacy and Communication Tools (we focus on non-confrontational skills and how to stay professional if confrontation happens)
I have spent months working on this course and truly think these lessons that I have learned have the potential to change the game when it comes to doula work. Most doulas burn out after two years of working bedside and I truly believe that a large part of this is doulas not getting the skills they need to confidently support the reality of birth in America.
Getting these skills as a doula can bring back your joy to doula work, help you market to a whole new group of clienteles that (pssst - business tip here —>) are not being marketed to by other doulas, and help you extend the benefits of doula support to families in your area who really need it!
Don’t be like me and learn things the hard way. Join us and see what it’s all about!
