There are plenty of pregnant individuals who have a soulful connection with a pre-determined birth philosophy. When it comes to the birth of their baby, a natural birth, unmedicated and un-intervened is what they expect and have always imagined.

And for others, their instinct is, “I trust my doctor and will leave all the decisions to them.”

These are birth philosophies that come from either life experiences or ideas that have been instilled in us.

They make sense to us and they often bring us great comfort. But what about those of us who have not considered these things.

You know, the millions of people who become pregnant and don’t think about these things. The people who don’t have a particular philosophy about birth and don’t even know where to find one.

Those people often find their way to Northeast Doulas for baby number 2.

You see, they entered into their first birth unassuming and unknowing and ultimately left feeling robbed of the natural birth they didn’t even know they wanted.

Sometimes in life, and in birth, we don’t realize how much we want something until we’ve lost it forever…

And that’s the thing about birth, we never get a do-over. I mean sure, we may have other babies in the future, but that birth? That experience is gone forever.

The title of this post is “Robbed of a Natural Birth” because that is exactly what it feels like to many people. It feels as though it has been stolen from them and they feel a sense of “loss of control” around the experience. It’s as if they actually felt it slipping away from them.

This brings us to informed consent.

Informed consent is when we grant permission to a care provider with the knowledge of the possible consequences, risks and benefits for a medical treatment to be performed on us.

Unfortunately, we are in the throws of labor when this permission is asked for and it can be difficult to unravel all of the possibilities during this time.

I mean, we are concerned about our baby, we are unfamiliar with labor and the process of birth in general, and we are typically vulnerable, uncomfortable and exhausted. All of these things can ultimately lead to a less-than-pleasant birth experience.

Enter the doula.

The doula’s role when it comes to education is to lead you to evidence based information and share the benefits, risks and alternatives of what is concerning you or being presented to you.

This can get complicated for us because sometimes we want to tell you EVERYTHING! Lol.

You see, we’ve been studying birth for years and years. We read about it, we talk about it and we watch it unfold regularly before our very eyes.

We also know how unsettling, even devastating it can be for our clients when they are dissatisfied by this memory making experience.

We work hard not to over share, not to cause additional fear or anxiety and to support you in the moment. We promise you we won’t over-inform you, but we also promise that we will answer your questions with the research and evidence that is available to us and that we will always support you without bias or judgment.

This is the birth of your baby and we want to help you have the most amazing experience possible!

Authored by: Randy Patterson