Positive News • 10/30/09 • In the Healthy Life Category
portadaAnnadoulasAutora: Anna Carnes - "Doula" is a Greek term that describes a woman who serves another woman. This word has spread worldwide to describe a woman who accompanies another, in the process of pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. It is not a health figure but a personal support and accompaniment to physical and emotional preparation.
Ancestralmente the primitive woman who lived in tribe made it connected with her body and her creative capacity. Upon reaching maturity, she would have lived with the pregnancies, births and upbringing of the other adult women in her community, who would also support and accompany her in her own experience.
Doula during pregnancy
Today the situation is very different: couples live isolated from other family nuclei and in many cases the first contact of women with the female creative force is their own pregnancy. It is then that fears, insecurities, stress and the need for control, make women "abandon" in the hands of professionals. And that's it; those sensations are hidden suddenly and the woman can continue with her life and have a pregnancy without almost knowing ... until more or less the 40th week in which the baby has to leave, and the fear of pain and the unknown are awakened. If everything goes well, in a couple of days the mother is at home without knowing what to do with a baby she does not know. In the case of the baby, this situation is experienced even more dramatically, as several studies have shown (eg Doctor Thomas Verny and John Kelly).
The role of the doula is to recover that support among women, rescue the ancestral wisdom that each one of us has, favor from the nest-- tero the mam -baby bond and in his case dad-baby, and always, always accompany the future mom in her own process. In this way pregnancy becomes more conscious, in the full sense of this word; the baby feels attached to his mother physically and emotionally; Be safe, protected and welcome. And those feelings of the intrauterine baby are already beginning to form the personality of the adult that he will become. According to the studies of Dr. Verny, expert and lecturer of intrauterine life, it is evident that the sensory and emotional stimuli that the baby perceives, at least as of the sixth month of gestation, decisively influence the tastes and personality of the future child.
Doula and childbirth
Equally decisive is the time of birth-delivery. How is that baby going to be received? Will he pass from his warm nest-uterus to his mother's warm arms and breasts? Could he feel his heartbeat, so familiar to him, sounding excited? Will your mother's eyes be the first ones she sees, her skin the first she smells, her voice the first thing she hears? And if so, what else could you ask for? Really both could enjoy the most intense, immense and happy moment of their lives. This is a good start to a life full of love.
Says the great Michel Odent, surgeon, obstetrician and birth researcher and everything around him: If we want to change the world, let's start by changing how we get to l . And, paraphrasing Dr. Odent, the way we are born affects us all our lives. These first stimuli will mark in the baby his way of relating to the world and therefore, a birth surrounded by love will make him the best person.
However, in our society, this natural situation is today difficult due to the high degree of intervention that surrounds pregnancy and childbirth. Starting with the epidural anesthesia that prevents the mother from free movement, which makes the use of synthetic oxytocin necessary, which forces the mother to give birth and finally favors the need for the use of ficeceps, suction cups and / or caesarean section. Spain has been harshly criticized by the World Health Organization for far exceeding the percentages of instrumented deliveries and cesarean sections recommended by that organization. But we must not blame the health system without looking at ourselves. What does the system do but respond to the demand of women who have been abandoned in their hands? Very different is the situation when medicine and technical advances are at the service of a mother-baby dyad that controls its process, and that counts on them in case of emergency. And to reach this situation, the doula plays its role of information, advice, support and much respect. This is how it works in other countries in Europe, in the Delivery Houses of Europe and Spain, and fortunately, more and more health teams tend to do so in different Spanish centers.
Working with a doula during pregnancy and childbirth has proven to have a long list of benefits, of course emotional but also practical: labor time decreases by 25%, the need to use Instruments decreases by 40%, cesarean section by 50%, and also the incidence of so-called postpartum depression is markedly reduced.
Doula and parenting
Facilitate the intimacy of the mother-baby dyad, the good start of breastfeeding, parenting with love and attachment, ... and continue with the keywords of the doula: facilitate, accompany and sustain. In the first days after childbirth, the vast majority of women have insecurities related to breastfeeding, to which the feared cracks are not rarely added with the consequent added pain. The doula then supplies that other woman of the tribe who with much love puts her experience and resources at the mother's disposal, avoiding fears and awakening in the woman the security and confidence in her innate ability to raise-love.
After those first days of adaptation and "landing", women can benefit from the support of the various breeding and lactation groups that operate throughout the Spanish geography. These groups are of great help to solve doubts, share knowledge and concerns, release emotions, ….
There is currently no official degree of doula, but there is a network of doulas in continuous training in Spain, which is supported and sustained, and has the collaboration of great health professionals committed to birth: obstetricians, midwives, psychologists, pediatricians, ... More and more professionals know, and get involved and engaged, with the benefits of surrounding pregnancy and the birth of the halo of love that corresponds to them.
"Love put the baby in there, love will take it out"
Related readings:
“The secret life of the child before birth”, “The baby is a mammal”, “The scientification of love” - Dr. Thomas Verny and John Kelly
Anna Carnes, physiotherapist-osteopath, doula - Sannas Clinic. C / Velarde, 9. Alcobendas (Madrid) - Tel .: 91 293 09 09 - http://www.sannasalud.com/ (under construction) -
