You're listening to Well Now,

You're listening to Well Now, Slate's podcast on Health and Wellness.

I'm Kavita Patel.

And I'm Maya Feller.

Every pregnant person has a different birth experience. Some will deliver in a hospital or in a birthing center and some will have planned sea sections and a small minority just over 1% will deliver at home.

Obstetricians and midwives are well-known members of the birth team.

They are present before, during, and after pregnancy,

and along with the pregnant person, they are central to labor and delivery.

Birth doula's are lesser known but they can provide essential support for

birthing people and their loved ones. They're also becoming more popular.

Approximately 6% of all births in the United States

were attended by a Dula. I have had very kind of far-reaching experience with Dula's. In fact, I had not even really encountered or

experienced a Dula until I started practicing in the Washington DC area. I'm just

going to say that in Texas, this is still something of a little bit of a harder to reach concept in many

birth centers, but in the mid-Atlantic where I practice there are more and more

doula's who are available as well as coverage by insurance

which I think makes a big difference by the way and I think that especially for the

births that I had what was interesting is that my very good friends who served as my obstetricians, both of them said,

sure we can have like a doula, but you really don't need one, you know a lot about birth.

That was pretty much exactly what my own

said to me.

She said, I've delivered hundreds of babies myself.

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