04/11/2025
The Role of a Doula: Advocacy (Part 2)
Educated doulas understand that advocacy can make a midwife or physicians job more complex.
When a doula encourages informed consent, it often means the provider has to slow down, explain options in more detail, and make sure the client fully understands before moving forward. In a fast-paced system, this might feel like an extra hurdle—but it’s a necessary step.
Midwives and physicians might feel frustrated when a doula’s presence leads to more conversations about routine practices, deeper discussions on risks and benefits, or documentation that a client is declining intervention(s) that conflicts with hospital policy. But rather than seeing this as an obstacle, it’s an opportunity to examine why patient-centered care isn’t already the norm.
Advocacy isn’t about making a provider’s job harder—it’s about making sure growing families have the time, space, and support to make choices they fully understand and genuinely consent to, even if/when those choices differ from hospital norms.
While many doulas in our community are restricted from using their voice to advocate for you, Community Doula Collective believes that our clients' self-determination is vital to creating safe and satisfying births. We believe that the role of a birth doula includes advocacy by supporting our clients in their right to make decisions about their body, birth, and baby.
LEARN MORE- communitydoulacollective.com
