Wait, what do you mean you don't attend births at the place I'm delivering or with the midwives I've chosen... can you explain that, please?
Of course. We do value transparency here, and I will try to be as open as I can when explaining this atypical move.
For some locations (Everett, Tacoma and Issaquah) it's purely distance. We have the ability to shrink our range a bit so we can better serve those clients we live closest to.
So, as birth doulas, it is our job to make sure that our clients are provided with evidence-based practices at facilities that respect both the autonomy of the birthing family and weigh that with the responsibility of care they hold as care providers.
As we have grown over the last 15+ years in the beautiful Pacific Northwest birthing community, we have seen prenatal and birthing practices come and go, policies change and providers work within those ever-changing roles.
Some providers simply didn't change with the current evidence and still practice in ways that we have seen be dangerous or cruel to patients. We have seen racism, oppression, abuse, fear-mongering and outright lies. This happens with hospital-based care providers and it happens with home birth midwives. Some out of hospital care providers are prone to overbooking themselves and that diminishes the quality of care they give their patients.
We decided that it was too much for our doula-hearts to continue to serve with these providers. Our job is hard even with care providers who are a pure joy to work with as we emotionally invest ourselves in every laboring family. Investing ourself in a family that is receiving care from someone we know to be abusive and provide less-than attentive care to families is not something we have chosen to do any longer. Some birth doulas hit this point and say "I no longer attend hospital births" but that isn't something we feel is a good practice as we genuinely love hospital birth!
For some locations (Everett, Tacoma and Issaquah) it's purely distance. We have the ability to shrink our range a bit so we can better serve those clients we live closest to.
So, as birth doulas, it is our job to make sure that our clients are provided with evidence-based practices at facilities that respect both the autonomy of the birthing family and weigh that with the responsibility of care they hold as care providers.
As we have grown over the last 15+ years in the beautiful Pacific Northwest birthing community, we have seen prenatal and birthing practices come and go, policies change and providers work within those ever-changing roles.
Some providers simply didn't change with the current evidence and still practice in ways that we have seen be dangerous or cruel to patients. We have seen racism, oppression, abuse, fear-mongering and outright lies. This happens with hospital-based care providers and it happens with home birth midwives. Some out of hospital care providers are prone to overbooking themselves and that diminishes the quality of care they give their patients.
We decided that it was too much for our doula-hearts to continue to serve with these providers. Our job is hard even with care providers who are a pure joy to work with as we emotionally invest ourselves in every laboring family. Investing ourself in a family that is receiving care from someone we know to be abusive and provide less-than attentive care to families is not something we have chosen to do any longer. Some birth doulas hit this point and say "I no longer attend hospital births" but that isn't something we feel is a good practice as we genuinely love hospital birth!