BIRTH

Support During Baby's Birth

A Birth Doula is a non medical professional labor assistant who provides physical and emotional support to you and your partner during pregnancy, childbirth, and early postpartum.

What do birth doulas offer?

Physical Support

A Birth Doula's most important role is to offer continuous support during labor and delivery. This includes providing position ideas for comfort and labor progression in addition to hands-on comfort measures such as providing a comforting touch, counter pressure, breathing techniques, and other “birth doula magic” for families. A birth doula’s skilled hands can often help a mispositioned baby find its way through the pelvis and into the birthing parent’s arms.

Continuous support from birth doulas during childbirth might be associated with:

A decreased in use of pain relief medication(s) during labor
A decreased in unplanned C-sections
A decrease in the length of labor
An increased rate of neutral and/or positive childbirth experiences
An increase transition rate of a positive breastfeeding experience

Emotional Support

Birth Doulas help families feel supported, easing the emotional experience of birth while helping to create a space where labor hormones can work optimally. Whether a birth is completely unmedicated or medically complex, every family can benefit from nurturing and connection at this tender, incredible time in their lives.

Partner Support

Birth Doulas provide guidance and support for loved ones. Whether it’s a romantic partner, a friend, or another family member like the baby’s grandma, the birth partner’s experience matters in birth. Our birth doulas are there to support every birth partner in being as involved as they’d like to be with the birth. Genuine physical and emotional support make a huge difference, and our birth doulas work hard to provide reassurance, comfort, and encouragement for everyone involved.

Better communication

Birth Doulas help facilitate communication between birthing parent and the medical staff. They also keep the information flowing when it comes to what's happening during labor and the postpartum period.

Evidence-Based Information and Advocacy

Birth Doulas are trained to help families connect with evidence-based resources so they can feel educated and empowered to not only ask great questions and make informed decisions, but also to better understand what is happening to influence decision making during birth. Birth Doulas serve as a bridge of communication between families and their medical team.

Delivering a baby is no small thing. The Birth Doulas at Gentle Giraffes can help you in-person and virtually during the delivery of your baby. However, it should be noted that a doula does not provide medical advice, nor can they change the clinical recommendations of a midwife or an obstetrician.

In Person

This is geared to get you set up and to provide support so that you’ll feel confident and secure being at home with your baby. Knowing this will help provide peace of mind during those early hours post-birth.

2 Prenatal visits, either in person or over zoom
One Birth Rehearsal -In Person 2 hours, 3-4 weeks out from due date
Identification of your support needs
Meeting with your other birth professional if desired
Unlimited phone/text/zoom consultations continually throughout pregnancy during awake hours — from the time of hire to 3 weeks postpartum.
24 hour on-call availability during your due date range (4 weeks)
Continuous birth support during your entire labor
2 Postpartum day visits of 5 hours each used within first 3 weeks postpartum
3 Overnights of 9 hours each (9p-6a) within the first 3 weeks postpartum
Ongoing support as needed from day one through first 3 weeks postpartum
List of our extensive referral services as needed
Integrated childbirth education information as needed in prenatal.

$3,200

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Virtual

Combining our experience, top-of-the-line education, expert knowledge and plethora of resources at our finger tips, we’ve designed them around our discovery of what best supports families in the areas they need it the most.

1 Prenatal visits virtually-zoom/live.
One Birth Rehearsal -In Person 2 hours, 3-4 weeks out from due date (This is where the Birth Doula can show the partner how to support the birthing parent)
Identification of your support needs
Meeting with your other birth professional if desired
Unlimited phone/text/zoom consultations continually throughout pregnancy during awake hours — from the time of hire to 3 weeks postpartum.
24 hour on-call availability during your due date range (4 weeks)
Continuous birth support during your entire labor Via Zoom or other virtual platform
1 Postpartum day visits of 5 hours each used within first 3 weeks postpartum
2 Overnights of 9 hours each (9p-6a) within the first 3 weeks postpartum
On going support as needed from day one through first 3 weeks postpartum
List of our extensive referral services as needed
Integrated childbirth education information as needed

2,400

Contacts Us

What our clients are saying

"Having a birth doula was life changing to my birth experience. It not only gave me that extra accountability during a vulnerable time in my life but also I felt like I had an extra voice in the hospital to give me time to make big decisions and educate me rather then feeling rushed. "

~ Jackie, Everett MA
"The day shifts were more helpful than I originally expected too. Not only did Erin and team take care of my daughter when I needed to run errands or go to the gym, they helped out with household chores like laundry or dishes, which enabled my husband and I to fully concentrate on both kids. "

~ Emily, Brookline MA
"Following the birth of our second child, we hired Erin to provide some post-partum doula services and found her to be warm, caring, and highly supportive. I reached back out to Erin when we started running into sleep troubles a few months post-birth and she helped me map out a plan that would work best for our family."

~ Ana, Cambridge MA

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