Reflections On The Skills Of A Doula

Why are we watching these people mirror each other? We invite you to find a family member or friend to do an exercise with you:

Stand opposite each other. Focus on the other’s face and lift your hands and begin to move. Like this:

Do not touch your partner. Just watch your partner’s face. Have eye contact. Try not to look at your hands. Try not to talk or laugh. Notice who is leading and how without words who leads and who follows may change organically.

What does it feel like to focus so intently on another?
Where in your body do you experience those feelings?
Can you feel warmth between your hands?
Did who was leading change, even without speaking?

What does this tell us about being a doula?

Many things! Perhaps the most important is the reminder that we follow our clients almost all the time. We are led by them – their desires and preferences, their plans and intentions. We follow, without judgement and without trying to influence the direction of travel.

But there may be times when we take the lead. These would be emergency or urgent situations. The most common of these is if the mother/birthing person is panicking in the later phases of labour. We might raise up our energy, voice and body language to meet hers, so that we can reach through her blind panic and grab her attention and then slowly, as we calm and soften and lower our volume, they follows us down to a place of calm. Read about this technique in more detail here.

An analogy is being at the seaside and being knocked off your feet by a huge wave. You are ripped under, unable to breathe, unable to tell which way is up, and feeling very frightened. Big contractions can do the same. Just as we might need someone to grab us and pull us to the surface in the sea, a doula or midwife sometimes has to reach down and haul a panicking person up and out of the depths if they have lost their rhythm.

Once you have them and they are breathing again, you can breathe with them, slow and deep. They will mirror you and begin to find their inner resources again to surf over each wave.