Midwives & Doulas

About This Support

Trained doulas and certified nurse midwives provide continuous support for mothers and their partners. A doula offers focused physical emotional support during labor, while a midwife assists during labor, delivery and postpartum recovery.

What is a doula?

A doula is a trained professional who acts as a constant form of informational, emotional and physical support for an expecting family throughout pregnancy or during delivery. A doula does not replace a woman's partner, but instead makes him or her feel more comfortable during the birth. For women without partners, a doula may be the only source of focused, continuous emotional support throughout her labor.

A doula may help to communicate a woman's birth plan, create a comfortable environment during delivery, or simply provide the general support a family may seek during this pivotal time. A doula does not perform clinical tasks.

Doulas are welcome at all Franciscan Health facilities. Franciscan Health Crown Point offers doula services free of charge to women using its childbirth facilities.

DONA International research shows that women who use a birth doula are:

• Less likely to use Pitocin
• Less likely to have a cesarean birth
• Less likely to use any pain medication
• More likely to rate their childbirth experience positively

What is a midwife?

A midwife is a certified health professional trained to support and assist a woman and infant during labor, delivery and postpartum recovery. While midwives are trained to recognize deviations in normal labor, they will refer to the patient’s physician if there are complications that are beyond their scope of practice.

Midwives provide initial and ongoing comprehensive assessment, diagnosis and treatment. They conduct physical examinations; prescribe medications including controlled substances; admit, manage and discharge patients; order and interpret laboratory and diagnostic tests and order the use of medical devices. Midwifery care also includes health promotion, disease prevention, and individualized wellness education and counseling.