Mothering the Mother: How a Doula Can Help You Have a Shorter, Easier and Healthier Birth
Klaus, Marshall H. and Kennell, John H. and Klaus, Phyllis H. (1993).
n.p.: Addison-Wesley Trade; 192 pages. $19.95 hard, $12.95 paper. ISBN 0201567970.
Mothering the Mother by Marshall Klaus, John Kennell and Phyllis Klaus is appropriately subtitled How a Doula can Help You Have a Shorter, Easier, and Healthier Birth. Doula is a Greek word that literally means a woman who has experience that can help other women. Klaus, Kennell and others who have researched the effects of the doula's presence during childbirth have come to define the term as a woman with experience in childbirth who will give the laboring mother emotional, physical and informational support during labor, delivery and just after childbirth.
A considerable body of empirical data has been collected by Klaus, Kennell and their colleagues over the last 15 years that converge to support the use of the doula. Over 1500 women in several different countries have participated in this research. The investigators have reported significantly shorter labors, significantly fewer cesarean sections (a 50 percent decrease) and a dramatic reduction in the mother's need for pain medication. In a study done in Johannesburg they also found that mothers with a doula during labor had greater self-confidence, felt they were better able to manage labor and delivery and were more involved with their babies immediately after birth. At six weeks following childbirth the mothers had a lower score on depression scales, they had reduced anxiety, increased success with breast feeding and a more positive attitude toward their infants and the infant's father. Their breast feeding continued for a longer period of time, and their infants, in turn, had fewer problems breast feeding. These data are so consistently convincing that the doula promises to become a standard childbirth practice.
Since the authors of this volume were also the investigators of the studies, there are no better people than they to tell the story. Their volume is nicely packaged in a very portable paperback with wonderful illustrations by the renowned childbirth photographer Suzanne Arms. The book is nicely divided into nine chapters whose titles tell the story: 1. The Need for Support in Labor; 2.The Doula; 3. The Benefits of Doula Support; 4.Birth with a Doula; 5. A Father's True Role; 6. Enhancing the Birth Experience; 7. The Dublin Experience; 8. Support After Birth; 9. How to Find and Choose a Doula. Appendices then describe the basic training of a doula with very concise directions for various procedures and ideas for helping the mother during the different stages of childbirth, as in a how-to manual. In another useful appendix addresses are provided for the various doula and labor support organizations in different parts of the country.
Because some people have confused the need for a doula as a father substitute during childbirth, the authors have made a special effort to illustrate how the doula and father work together as a team. The caption introducing their chapter on the father tells it all:
I have run a number of marathons, I have done a lot of hiking with a heavy backpack, and I have worked for 40 hours straight on-call; but going through labor with my wife was more strenuous and exhausting than any of these experiences. We could never have done it without the doula. She was crucial for us.
This book promises to be the bedside companion of many mothers and fathers about to experience childbirth, and hopefully will also be appealing to obstetricians, gynecologists and midwives, whose role in delivery could be significantly facilitated by the presence of the doula. Even doulas, who already know most of this material, will find new tips for their work and certainly the data to support their very important role in the birthing process. Klaus, Kennell and Klaus are to be commended for not only their seminal research in this area and for bringing this important process into our lives, but also for capturing all of this in their very scholarly and artistic way in their volume Mothering the Mother.
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