What Exactly is a Postpartum Doula?
We’re glad you asked! A Postpartum Doula is a trained professional that offers physical, emotional, and informational support to a new mother and the rest of the family. Postpartum Doulas also offer breastfeeding support, light household organization, family nurturing and instruction to mom and/or other family members in caring for a newborn.
The Postpartum Doula’s role is to make the transition to parenthood easier for new parents, help mom during her recovery period, and help the family determine what the needs help with, and provide the instruction. Postpartum Doulas do NOT offer any medical advice or perform any medical or clinical procedures but instead can provide parents with referrals to appropriate studies and published books.
Is an overnight postpartum doula like a night nurse or night nanny?
Short answer: Sort of. Long answer: Not really. Many families have heard of “night nannies” or “night nurses” before. Their jobs are to take over complete control of the newborn and siblings during the overnight hours. “Nurses” would need to have a nursing license to provide this service. Nannies are not trained postpartum professionals.
Our main goal as a postpartum doula: To help the new mother recover physically and emotionally from their birth experience while providing additional support to the newborn and other family members.
We are similar in that we support the parents and newborns during overnight hours. The doulas on our Iowa Baby Ladies team are all professionally trained and provide the highest level of support with professional standards of care. They have extensive knowledge on all areas of life with a newborn including feedings, bathing, safety, infant sleep, and more.
As your postpartum doula(s), we offer the following services:
- Physical support: Depending on the type of birth you experienced, we can offer helpful information as you’re healing and recovering from birth.
- Emotional Support: Being a new parent comes with a lot of unexpected and unpredictable emotions and hormonal fluctuations! Your doula(s) will be able to help you navigate the wide range of emotions you’ll experience.
- Breastfeeding and bottle-feeding support and tips: We love to help our clients with whatever their infant feeding goals are! We help with lactation during our shifts and if we need more expertise, we are happy to refer you to other experienced lactation professionals in our area. We also have a wide range of experience–and helpful tips–when it comes to bottles, nipples, pumping, formula, feeding practices, and more!
- Baby care instruction: Is this your first baby and would like a baby professional to show you the ropes? Are you already parents but would love to learn another technique for swaddling, spa baths, babywearing, etc.? We’re here to help!
- Household assistance: We know how nice it is to have some extra hands to help with the mountains of baby laundry, some meal preparations, bottle sanitizing, etc. If we have time, we would love to tackle one or two household tasks during our longer shifts.
- Sibling care: We love the big brothers and sisters! We can offer ideas and hands-on support for these special family members to be sure they are adapting to their new baby the best they can.
- Meal preparation: Some of our doulas love prepping freezer meals, helping with nutritional healing foods, and organizing meal donations for you. Be sure to ask us about this option!
- Errand running
- Other services based on family need
How Much Support Do You Need? What’s the Fee for Postpartum Doula Support?
Let’s start with a few simple questions about you!
- How much experience do you and your partner have in caring for a newborn during the day?
- How much experience do you and your partner have in recovering from birth?
- How much experience do you have caring for a newborn overnight?
- How much support will you have after the baby arrives? Not just visitors, but really good help with things like meals, sleep, errands, laundry, etc.?
If you find yourself feeling a little lost or inexperienced when answering these questions, that’s ok and very common! That’s why we do what we do to help parents find their confidence in those first weeks and months.
While some areas of the USA offer live-in care, we have not seen a big request for that in our area. A typical Iowa family will reserve anywhere from three to eight weeks of support with our doulas coming in three or four times a week, often a mix of daytime and overnight support. Of course some families reserve more or less support than that too, or just do daytime support or just do overnight support.
We have a set daytime fee and a set overnight hourly fee but the total amount depends on your needs. Every family is different and we love to create a custom plan for each family! We do not charge more for multiples unless you need two doulas at the same time (triplets, quadruplets, medical needs, etc.) After you complete the contact form below, please check your email for our Welcome Packet with lots of details including fees, perks, service details, and more!
Our team offers both day and overnight postpartum doula support. We also have limited evenings and weekends available by request. Please fill out this form below so we can schedule a chat about planning the right amount of support for your baby team!
What Iowans Are Saying About Postpartum Support…
“Katie was more supportive than ever imagined. When breastfeeding became a challenge for me and my son, she offered her services and knowledge. Her kind words are just what a new mom needs to hear – she speaks to mothers in a mother’s voice and not in a ‘doctor-voice’. She also spent time with my other child to help her understand what it meant to be a big sister. I thought I had prepared her with not only new toys and books, but also a lot of information, but she still needed someone to spend quality time with her and Katie did just that – a service I never imagined would be the case from my doula. Lastly, Katie spent time listening. So many people wanted to offer their words of wisdom after both my children were born. While I appreciated most of what family and friends said, it is was so nice to have someone to sit down with me and listen to how I and my body were feeling. Hiring Katie as a doula was the best choice for me and my family – I would do it again without question!”
From Des Moines Moms Blog: Postpartum Doula: The Iowa Baby Lady Services in Central Iowa
From WHO TV 13: Iowa’s ‘Baby Lady’ Helping New Moms Gain Confidence and Get More Sleep | who13.com
Let’s Chat!
Please do not wait to book your postpartum doula support! We are often booked to full capacity and encourage families to contact us as soon as possible. If your baby is already here and you’re looking for support, we can definitely try to see what availability we have for you.
