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Doulas - midwives - serve expectant
mothers through entire birth process
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A new partnership in the area is offering an unusual service: mothering mothers and mothers-to-be.
The partnership, called Euphoric Birth Services, helps mothers before, during and after they deliver their babies.
Cindy Collins, founder of Euphoric Birth Services, is a doula, from a Greek word for servant. “So you’re serving women during labor,” Collins said.
Collins attended a midwifery conference in Denmark last spring and said her eventual goal is to become a home-birth midwife. “But I don’t want to wait; I want to support women in labor while I am learning,” she said.
Collins and her business partner, Tanya Mays, meet with pregnant women and help them learn about birth. Then, when they go into labor, she goes to the birth center, hospital or home where they are in labor, so she can help them.
Collins, herself a mother of two, said she has worked as a lactation and breastfeeding coach and continues to support her clients who are breastfeeding.
Collins supports women largely through educating them about many aspects of birth and offering specialized services, including some American mothers might find unusual.
Breastfeeding, Collins said, can be made easier if the mother ingests her own placenta. Placenta encapsulation - slicing and dehydrating placenta - can help a variety of problems, including lack of milk, low energy and postpartum depression, said Collins, who offers the service.
She said each placenta is hormonally unique, and its health benefits can help women avoid medical intervention, which she said could have serious side effects.
While the idea is new in the United States, said Collins, women all over the world consume their own placenta.
Collins said she was inspired to become a doula after reading about them in natural birth books. “It’s really nice to have the extra support,” said Collins. She said doulas reduce the need for Caesarian sections by half, can reduce labor time by a quarter, reduce the need for epidurals by 60 percent and the use of analgesic by 30 percent. Women who are attended by doulas are 30 percent less likely to have their babies delivered using forceps or vacuum suction, she said.
There are few doulas in Delaware, said Collins, so she is trying to begin a network of support to help practicing doulas and grow their ranks.
Collins also does belly casting - making plaster molds of pregnant women’s bellies - and photography, specializing in maternity and newborn photographs. |
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