Doulas
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The Doulas
Author: Mary Mahoney
language: en
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
Release Date: 2016-10-17
Weaving together how-to manual, activist memoir, and manifesto, The Doulas is an “honest, raw, and charged” treatise on full-spectrum doula care. (Rewire) As more feminist conversation migrates online, the activist providers of the Doula Project remain focused on life’s physically intimate relationships: between caregivers and patients, parents and pregnancy, individuals and their own bodies. They are committed to supporting a pregnancy no matter the outcome—whether it results in birth, abortion, miscarriage, or adoption—and to facing the question of choice head-on. In this eye-opening book, Doula Project founders Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell present the history, philosophy, and practices of these caregivers, contextualizing the doula movement within the larger scope of pregnancy care and reproductive rights. They illustrate how, through their unique hands-on activism, full-spectrum doulas provide tangible support for those confronting life, death, and the sticky in-between.
Understanding Doulas and Childbirth
This book contextualizes how having a doula, or labor-support woman, present during childbirth results in lower rates of medical interventions. American women are inundated with views that childbirth is inherently risky, their bodies deficient, and therefore encouraged to accept the medicalized nature of childbirth resulting in high rates of unwarranted interventions that can pose significant risk in a normal pregnancy. Why is birthing with a doula different? The narratives in this book support the belief that doulas often question the high rates of medical interventions in childbirth, fundamentally lodging a critique about the medicalization of childbirth to the women they serve. These stories share a very different philosophy about childbirth; one where the female body is capable, resilient, and not normally requiring external medical intervention. Doulas enter into a care-provider relationship that focuses on the experience of the birth as something transformative, to be honored and centered on the woman’s body in an active role in the process. Lastly, doulas model to their clients both love and advocacy because doulas believe that modeling these behaviors will translate as women become mothers through the process of childbirth.
Doulas in Italy
This book documents the emergence of doulas as care professionals in Italy, considers their training, practices, and representation, and analyses their role in national and international context. Doulas offer emotional, informational and practical support to women and their families during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. Pamela Pasian explores the development of this ‘new’ profession and how doulas are defining their space in the Italian maternity care system. Whilst doulas are gaining recognition they are also facing opposition. The book reflects on the conflicts and collaborations between doulas and midwives, as well as relations between different doula associations. Interweaving ethnography and autoethnography, it will be of interest to anthropologists, sociologists and those working in health and maternity care.