I believe every person has a right to be actively involved with their doctors and other health care professionals in deciding what course of treatment is best for them. I also believe every person should have someone to help them make the best decisions for them at the time and to listen to them and offer comfort measures and other means of support during the process.
Women deserve to have the pregnancy, labor, birth, and postpartum period they want, whenever possible.
Having a baby is supposed to be a joyful time. Women should have one of these support people (a doula) to help them have the best birth they can. I believe women have a right to be informed about everything in relation to pregnancy, labor, birth, and postpartum, and I believe women should be able to do all of those things their way, whenever it is safe.
It seems as if many times when a woman chooses to use the services of a doula, she is intending to have a natural childbirth. I want it to be understood I support both natural and medicated births, and even surgical births, when the mother is informed and there is a true medical reason for going that route.
Unfortunately, complications can arise and unexpected events happen, sometimes to an unwanted end. Complications during pregnancy, labor, childbirth, and postpartum, and even, God forbid, miscarriage and fetal demise, I will be there, regardless of the outcome. No woman should have to be alone in those times.
