Doula's Creed - what a doula is and is not

• As a doula, you have sufficient faith in the inherent rightness of birth that you're comfortable, even confident, to attend women who choose to birth where they want, with or without midwives or other medical professionals present.

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YOU MAY, having experienced certain birth settings as so abusive, traumatic or unconducive to natural, physiological birth, opt out of subjecting yourself to these environments and insist on only supporting clients in the spaces that nourish you.

• You acknowledge each person’s autonomy over and responsibility for their own health, life & choices. As such, you do not fear or pay any mind to the potential for litigation in the event of a poor outcome for mother or baby. You come to a clear understanding with parents that they are and remain, at all times, in control of the choices they make and their own health and well-being. In this way, women are treated like adults and birth is treated like a portentous but everyday event.

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• You recognise the importance of human birth retaining its biological status and for mothers and babies to experience the full compliment of hormones and processes traditionally associated with it. You challenge increasing intervention, especially the rise in surgical and instrumental birth rates and evicting babies from the womb early through the induction process.