A doula can ease your fears
The fact that you are here, at this website, may mean that you are looking for something beyond a typical hospital birth experience. Perhaps you've heard horror stories about unnecessary and unwanted interventions, inductions and c-sections. Perhaps your first birth was 'a nightmare' and you're hoping for a calmer, easier, faster birth this time -- if you want to help make changes to hospital policies, be sure to participate in the Letters Project and to tell all of your pregnant friends.
Perhaps you are here because you want your birth experience to be life affirming, rewarding and even enjoyable. This is your chance to feel empowered, safe and cared for and to have a better birth in a hospital, birth center or at home. The first step toward a better birth experience includes the support of a doula.
A doula can save you money
The presence of a
doula during your labor can reduce the need for a surgical birth (c-section) by
40-60%. Your copayment for a surgical birth may be less than the
doula's fees, and you may be reimbursed for up to 70% of your doula's fees by your insurance company. Even without reimbursement, you can save money by hiring a doula to prevent unnecessary and costly procedures. These charges include the cost of the anesthesiologist, the additional days mother and baby spend in the hospital, additional tests and procedures required for a baby born via surgery and the cost of postpartum help while the new mother recovers from major abdominal surgery. Can you afford NOT to hire a doula for your baby's birth?
B*E*S*T includes
a wonderful group of birth and postpartum doulas -- qualified
birth professionals who come from a wide variety of backgrounds. B*E*S*T doulas may be trained
in Birth Hypnosis (aka HypnoBirthing), Birthing From Within, Bradley
and/or Lamaze techniques.
B*E*S*T doulas provide the information you need to make
good decisions about your pregnancy and birth and will support you
and your decisions without judgment wherever and however you give birth.
The owner and operator of Birth Empowerment Support Team (B*E*S*T) Doula Service, tracy hartley has supported over 450 Los Angeles area pregnant and childbearing women and their families since 1996. She has been quoted in The Doula Advantage by Rachel Gurevich and Easy Labor: Every Woman's Guide to Choosing Less Pain
and More Joy During Childbirth by William Camann and Kathryn Alexander. She has also been seen on A Baby Story and featured on Channel 7 Eyewitness News.
Birth doulas (also called childbirth assistants, labor support professionals, birth assistants, or birth companions) provide emotional, physical and informational support during pregnancy, labor, birth and immediate postpartum.
A doula does not replace the partner. Instead she helps support the partner so that he or she can love and encourage the laboring woman.
Doulas provide support in the hospital, at home or at a birthing center -- wherever women give birth.
