A Brief History of Doulas and The Rise of Obstetrics
The word doula derives from the Ancient Greek word “women’s servant”, and the role of the doula dates back centuries. Doulas are woven into our innate human history across many cultures as a sacred infrastructure for birthing women as they have gathered together for thousands of years to empower and guide one another through the profound journey of childbirth. These ancestral practices, rooted in wisdom and community, were not just about birth - they were about connection, intuition and honoring the village.
In our American culture, before the 1930s, women gave birth at home with the support of skilled midwives and women from their families and female friends surrounding them. The development of obstetrics led the way to women becoming estranged from the natural birthing process. Increased regulations and medical advances (such as the use of antibiotics and safe blood transfusions) helped decrease the maternal mortality rate by 71% from 1939-1948. Nearly a century later, there still stands a place for modern medicine in the birth space when risk factors exist. However, this move to birthing in hospitals created an entirely new lens that birth is no longer natural, healthy or safe. OBs began relying on interventions at an astonishing rate in low-risk pregnancies that are often not medically necessary. It shifted birth from normal and natural into the perspective that it’s a risky event that could even be classified as an “illness”.
When looking at birth in just the last 30 years, the movement away from natural birth can be clearly seen. In 1990, 9.6% of births were induced. Today nearly 50% of labors are said to be induced with 50% of those births resulting in a c-section. As doulas, we recognize that medical interventions have undoubtedly saved lives in many areas of medicine, but we also first-hand witness the chasm modern medicine puts between the birthing woman and her primal wisdom. Often, intuitive, spiritual and emotional connections have slipped away, especially in the hospital system. Medicine and the use of technology is intervening in places of birth that are better left untouched. There are interventions (including c-sections, inductions, artificially rupturing membranes and epidurals) used at a shocking rate for convenience versus medical necessity. Hospitals are capitalizing on the business of birth, and providers are forced to disrupt the natural flow of birth to manage patient volume. As your doula, we vow to intentionally draw on womanly wisdom to support and hold space for you on your birthing journey.
Coming Back to the Woman's Primal Wisdom
There’s been a recent resurgence of the ancient role of the doula as women seek to reclaim their primal power. Women are awakening to the need for a trusted presence in their birth space. We, as doulas, are often reminding women to honor their intuition and trust their bodies, especially when fear tactics are being sprung upon them. In other cultures and other mammalian species, females do not waver on how or when they will give birth, they go inward and they just do it. Our goal is to empower you, mama, to harness your power rather than rely on external systems.
Throughout history, and still in many other cultures, birth is not an isolated experience. The mother’s village engulfs her in support of different roles. At Soul Shine Birth, our goal is to echo the village tradition before, during and after birth. Rituals were a cornerstone of ancestral birth work, serving as a pillar of strength for grounding, and honoring the sacred rite of passage of birth. We use tools like talismans, birth alters, aromatherapy and more to reintroduce these centuries-old elements to connect back to the spiritual depth of childbirth. When we connect with the women who came before us, we have the opportunity to tap into the unbroken chain of strength, resilience and love. Their voices echo in the rhythmic chant of a mother in labor, their hands guide us as we ‘shake the apples’ with a Rebozo, and their wisdom grounds us in moments of uncertainty.
As doulas at Soul Shine Birth, we’re passionate about honoring and building a community that celebrates the impact of women supporting women. We stand hand-in-hand with generations of women who honored the birth space as a rite of passage infused with power and purpose. Their wisdom lives alive within us as we reclaim and remember their sacred traditions. We hope that their legacy can live on as we serve families in more meaningful, impactful ways by reminding birthing women of the primal power within them.
We’re dedicated to making impactful change. According to the American Pregnancy Association (APA), the presence of doulas reduces c-sections by 50%, labor duration by 25%, epidural use by 60% and the administering of pitocin by 40%. We’re creating a future where childbirth is not feared, but celebrated as the transformative, powerful rite of passage it is meant to be. By blending ancestral wisdom with the tools we have today, we can serve our clients the way that they need all while keeping the sacred, unyielding strength of the women who walked this path before us alive. We are privileged to be a part of something far greater than ourselves; a timeless tradition of women serving women, as it always has been, and always will be.
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