by Louise Roy

January 2012

In the land of the planned c-section birth on a selected auspicious date a less medical birth option can seem like crazy talk.

When I was pregnant, my husband and I had chosen a great doctor who we felt totally comfortable with. In our minds, the labour would go like this: Water breaks, chill at home for a bit, and then eventually head to the hospital, at which point our obstetrician would drop everything and run to our room, spending the next twelve hours or so nursing us through the labour and delivery.

At some point along the way it occurred to us that the obstetrician was really only going to be there right at the end, just in time to catch the baby. The rest of the time we would be more or less on our own. In spite of having helped many of my girlfriends through their pregnancies and even being involved in some of their births, I suddenly felt as though I had no idea of what I was expected to do.

We felt horribly out of our depths.

‘Never mind’, we thought. ‘We’ll go to the childbirth education classes run by our hospital, and learn everything we need to.’

So dutifully we trotted off to the classes, only to be inundated with rather outdated philosophies about breathing in different ways, for different lengths of time, at different points during the labour. I’ve never been much good with figures, but this all left my head absolutely spinning. We left the class feeling even less like we knew what we were doing. Add to this the fear of giving birth in another culture, with no guarantee of even a nurse to help us who could speak English, and its fair to say that we were feeling very overwhelmed.

The following Monday I sat in a staff meeting listening to a colleague tell me of the fantastic birthing center she’d wanted to give birth at in Germany. However, since she’d relocated here to Shanghai, she decided that the best she could do was deliver at a hospital, but that she’d insisted on having a Doula.

My ears pricked up. ‘A Doula? What’s that? Like an epidural?’ I wondered.

“Yeah, a Doula” she said, reading the confusion and intrigue plastered across my face. “It’s a professional birth assistant, who comes to the hospital to help you physically and emotionally through the labour, provide educational resources and advocates for your needs and wishes with the hospital staff”

“Sounds like a fairy godmother. Does she also have a magic wand?”

Fast forward a few months to our delivery. Our own Doula, Yolanta, who we found through Shanghai Doula, helped us immeasurably through our 34 hour labour. The birth itself was long, difficult, and hindered by several complications. However the support, guidance and advocacy provided by our Doula made us feel calm and ultimately in control of the whole process. In fact, the experience inspired me to become a Doula myself, and it is my honor and privilege to help other couples through the inspirational journey of birth.

Nowadays Shanghai Doula is run by Louise Roy and her colleague Alison Nantz. Both women provide Birth Doula Support, and in addition, Alison is a certified Lactation Education Counsellor and Louise provides Newborn and Baby Care Consultations. Additionally, they also teach Childbirth Education Classes. As Shanghai Doula, they are unaffiliated with any hospital here in Shanghai and as such are able to provide the latest, unbiased and up-to-date information to our attending couples.

For more information check out www.shanghaidoula.com