What is a postpartum doula?

Postpartum Doula Care is a unique niche area of care provided to new mothers and their families specifically during the fourth trimester, the period of time after birth lasting anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months. The fourth trimester is now recognized by the The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists as “a critical period for a woman and her infant setting the stage for long-term health and well-being.” During this time, many new families are lacking the support they need in their home to slowly step into their new role. A postpartum doula can help!

The difficult aspect of the fourth trimester is this compounding issue of lack of sleep. Newborn babies need to be fed every 2-4 hours throughout the night the first week of their life. This feeding schedule varies depending on babies needs, but overall does not allow for the much needed rest you need to recover from birth. If you have other children in the home it makes rest during the day that much harder. Without rest, small tasks in the home seem impossible to do, but if you are resting not everything gets done. This leads to negative feelings which turns into a cycle that can be hard to get out of. Having a doula on your team you can have someone who is checking in on you, but also helping get some things done that might be making you feel a little anxious. With the proper support families can feel supported in their journey which can change the feelings they have around this big change in their life.

What is normal for the postpartum period?

This is one of those answers you’re not going to feel satisfied with, but there is a big wide range of normal. It is pretty normal for women and their partners to experience a big shift in emotions at 3 weeks postpartum, this is when you have reached this maximum amount of exhaustion before you look around and remember that that 6 week mark everyone talks about is halfway here. You may feel bored of your rest and healing but may still not have a good feeding routine and breastfeeding is taking longer to work on than you had anticipated. Some women at this time seem to be getting right back to their normal, while this is not very common it is often not just that they have gotten back to normal, but have a lot of support and other options for feeding support. For a lot of women, going back to work at 6 weeks postpartum is expected, this may be a big trigger for postpartum anxiety and depression and only prolong the postpartum period. By 12 weeks postpartum many women have gotten some sort of normalcy developed, routines and sleep patterns put in place.

A doula can make this 12 week period feel supported and help develop those routines, teach families the communication they do have with their baby and remind them that what they are doing is hard and they are doing a great job. Remember that when we think of normal in the postpartum period, we need to know that there are so many factors contributing to normal. A postpartum doula would consider outside responsibilities, work life, home life, breastfeeding, sleep (or lack thereof), other children, financial stress, and anything else that could contribute to some mental stress. Based on all of those outside factors a doula can identify if feelings and behaviors of a new mother and her baby are “normal” for what they are experiencing, knowing that if you add compounding things and someone is seemingly “fine” this can be a red flag that they might need some support as well, they have just not reached the point of asking or needing to ask for help.

Introducing the Postpartum Doula Project

As some of you know, Roots Family Collaborative received a $20,500 grant (we are PUMPED!) from the Montana Healthcare Foundation to support a year-long planning process to provide free or sliding-scale postpartum doula services in Gallatin and surrounding counties for families in the critical stage following birth. 

We are very proud of this award and our planning process kicked off with an Advisory Meeting at Roots Family Collaborative. The Advisory Board is comprised of local professionals and parents who will be contributing to decisions about the development of the program.

Current Advisory Board members are: Brooke Caldwell, APRN, CNMBC Bozeman Health; Marilee Simons, MD, FACOG Bozeman Health; Jaime June, IBCLC Billings Clinic; Justin Connor, Integrated Behavioral Health Patient Navigator Bozeman Health; Barb Johnson, Hypnobirthing Instructor, former Labor and Delivery Nurse; Kelli Stanley, Owner Tree of Life Doula Care; Amie Gatterdam, Maternal and Child Health Manager Healthy Gallatin; Kami O’Neal, Doula; Megan Lindbloom, Intern Tree of Life Doula Care; Laura Brin, Development Consultant; Emily Niles, local parent; Suzanne Bendick, Executive Director Roots Family Collaborative.

The goal of the Postpartum Doula Project is to provide free and affordable in-home doula care for any family in our community, regardless of their ability to pay, and we hope to implement a pilot program starting January 2024, contracting services from Tree of Life Doula Care. This program will provide critical care to new families at a pivotal time after birth, providing mothers, babies and families with postpartum care they would not otherwise receive.

The rural nature of our state makes medical care difficult to access. This, compounded by the fact that care is often fragmented and confusing, leaves parents isolated, exhausted, and overwhelmed in an extremely critical and vulnerable developmental stage. 

How can you help?

You can sponsor a family through Tree of Life Doula Care and you can always reach out to us if you are in need of some other suggestions for support.

Please check out this graphic that shows some other ways you can show up for ANYONE postpartum, whether it is a neighbor, family member, co worker or friend!

One of our main goals is to teach families to swim before they are drowning in the sea of life. Postpartum Doula’s can help with so many things, and offering this service to families who would otherwise not be able to afford the help will benefit our community as a whole for generations to come. Creating stability for children can eliminate mental health issues that stem from childhood because we have provided this rock-solid support system for their family from the day they were born. This has an exponential trickle down effect for the future of our community and with this model we can reach out to other communities and help them provide the support, making this world a better place, one family at a time!