Doctors, midwives, and nurses all play vital roles in your birth team and will each support your birth in their given capacities. These people are highly trained medical experts and as such are responsible for monitoring your safety and the safety of your baby during labor and delivery. However, doctors, midwives, and nurses all come and go during your labor and delivery, often leaving you and your partner alone for extended periods of time. A doula is not part of your medical team and is not a replacement for a medical team, a doula serves to complement that team by providing continuous one on one support to the mom from the beginning of labor, through delivery, and during several hours postpartum. Doulas do not offer medical care, rather they attend to every other part of your birth experience.

The earlier the better as your doula can begin to answer questions, offer suggestions, and get to know you. The longer you know your doula, the better your relationship will be when the time for delivery comes. You will benefit from doula support, whether you contacted her early in your pregnancy or late in the third trimester, there is never a wrong time to contact a doula. 

This is a concern we hear often and want to lay to rest. One of your doula's main jobs is to enhance the support that partners offer by increasing their confidence in assisting the laboring mother. A doula is supportive of both mother and birth partner and can play a crucial role in helping a partner become involved with the process, without being intrusive. Doulas allow birth partners guilt-free breaks, relieving their fears of exhaustion as mom will not be left alone during any part of the birth. Doulas support the birth partner by offering suggestions of what to do next, knowledge of what is happening to mom and baby as labor intensifies, and encouragement that will prevent partner and mom from becoming overwhelmed. Each member of a woman's family will have their own emotional response to seeing a woman they love experience labor, this is a special moment for each of these people. A doula also serves as an information source, there to answer any questions, help the family process test results, and translate medical language as the birth progresses.