A Doula's Tools 05/15/2010

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What tricks and tools does a doula bring to a birth?

I remember taking a doula training course many years ago and we spent a good deal of time talking about what "tools" or "toys" we were to pack into our birth bag to take with us as we attend births. This was an exciting time for me and I remember feeling thrilled to put my "birth bag" together.

After attending my first few births as a doula, I learned that I rarely used half of the "tools" I had brought with me and that there were other more important things that I needed.

My biggest "tools" I have used that do not add extra weight to my bag include my voice, my touch, and my heart.
 
I learned that I talked too much and that I should not talk unless it would improve the silence. I learned that my touch was often guided by a sense of what the woman needed at that moment. And I used my heart to fill that woman and her partner and those in her birth space with love. I found that if I brought my fears and baggage with me, it played into the woman's fears as well. I began learning how to enter the birth space by cleansing myself first of anything going on at home or in my past and learning how to just "be in the moment." When I worried less about what physical tools I had to help and allowed myself to be more present with her and listened with my heart to what she needed, I always found myself surprised and curious at each birth journey.

We are a society laden with gadgets, gizmos, and technology and many things we use in life rely on these things, for good or ill. Sometimes we forget our most important tools are not tangible.

The "birth tools" I was so excited to put into my bag are no longer there anymore.