In our country, birth is a phenomenon marked by the strangest of ironies – for the most intimate happening of your life, you are surrounded by a complete set of strangers and asked to do your best in pushing a human out.

While the western world has taken leaps and bounds in helping women give birth naturally, in India – the land of ‘dai mas’ or midwives – these amazing birthing assistants have remained in the periphery in modern lifestyle.

However, doulas are slowly finding ground in urban India, leading to more women having natural births – with husbands joining in the experience.

Celestina Cavinder, a Bangalore-based doula and mother of six, explains why there has been a recent rise in the demand for her services.

She now takes ‘bookings’ almost 6 months in advance.

More importantly, after the initial reluctance from some hospitals/doctors/nurses to embrace the assistance of professional doulas, there has been a shift towards acceptance – doctors have understood that doulas can perfectly assist and encourage mothers in no-risk pregnancies.

To Make the Caregiving Mainstream

India could benefit from following one of the successful models practised in western countries.

Lina Duncan, a midwife since 1999, has been practising in Mumbai for 8 years.

Another doula and a civil engineer by profession, Delhi-based Divya Deswal has combined the best of both worlds.

Her knowledge of midwifery in India – along with her western training on childbirth – has made her a leading caregiver.

Divya has helped women who have had painful first time deliveries, crisis of belief in themselves and failure at breastfeeding to have perfect, calm natural births the second time round.

A Guardian, a Friend, a Nurturing Presence

Doulas can come into the picture at any point during the pregnancy, but preferably earlier than later.

“Available at the odd hour we delivered our baby in, my husband – who was also involved in the birth – cannot imagine how this would have played out without a doula. We suggest every woman have one to make this scary experience a positively life changing one,” enthuses Vaishali.

Celestina expounds on what a doula does:

• Pre-natal classes to help prepare the mother-to-be physically by learning certain breathing and muscle exercises which ease the delivery.
  
• Helping mentally by giving detailed explanations of what the mother can expect so that nothing comes as a ‘surprise’.
  
• Finally, during the highly emotional delivery and postpartum period, she is a source of comfort and reassurance.
  

With the rise in nuclear families and more independence given to couples in making life choices, many mothers-to-be go into pregnancy with little or no knowledge.

The lack of understanding and preparedness leads to stressful and overly-complicated pregnancies that could have been much enjoyable had the mother received physical, emotional and mental advice beforehand. So a doula has a very positive role to play in the current Indian context.

(Runa Mukherjee Parikh has written on women, culture, social issues, education and animals, with The Times of India, India Today and IBN Live. When not hounding for stories, she can be found petting dogs, watching sitcoms or travelling. A big believer in ‘animals come before humans’, she is currently struggling to make sense of her Bengali-Gujarati lifestyle in Ahmedabad.)