Nedan listas de konkreta effekter en doula kan ha på en förlossning och för de blivande föräldrarna. Ett flertal studier på doulaeffekten påvisar samma resultat.
En doulas närvaro och stöd under en födsel
• tenderar att resultera i kortare förlossningar med färre komplikationer
• minskar negativa känslor om den egna förlossningen
• minskar behovet av värkstimulerande dropp, sugklocka, tång och kejsarsnitt
• minskar behovet av smärtlindring och/eller epidural.
Föräldrar som får stöd av en doula
• känner sig säkrare och mer omhändertagna
• kommer fortare igång med amningen
• har större självförtroende i föräldrarollen
• har mindre risk att drabbas av depression efter förlossningen
• har lättare att ställa om sig till den nya familjedynamiken.
Källor
1. Continuous support for women during childbirth
Meghan A Bohren 1 , G Justus Hofmeyr, Carol Sakala, Rieko K Fukuzawa, Anna Cuthbert
”Continuous support during labour may improve outcomes for women and infants, including increased spontaneous vaginal birth, shorter duration of labour, and decreased caesarean birth, instrumental vaginal birth, use of any analgesia, use of regional analgesia, low five-minute Apgar score and negative feelings about childbirth experiences. We found no evidence of harms of continuous labour support. Subgroup analyses should be interpreted with caution, and considered as exploratory and hypothesis-generating, but evidence suggests continuous support with certain provider characteristics, in settings where epidural analgesia was not routinely available, in settings where women were not permitted to have companions of their choosing in labour, and in middle-income country settings, may have a favourable impact on outcomes such as caesarean birth. Future research on continuous support during labour could focus on longer-term outcomes (breastfeeding, mother-infant interactions, postpartum depression, self-esteem, difficulty mothering) and include more woman-centred outcomes in low-income settings.”
2. Evidence on: Doulas
Rebecca Dekker, PhD, RN / Evidence Based Birth. Länkar till till flera studier, bland andra en av Kerstin Uvnäs-Moberg
”(…) A second reason that doulas are effective is because doulas are a form of pain relief in themselves (Hofmeyr, 1991). With continuous support, laboring people are less likely to request epidurals or pain medication. It is thought that there is fewer use of medications because birthing people feel less pain when a doula is present. An additional benefit to the avoidance of epidural anesthesia is that women may avoid many medical interventions that often go along with an epidural, including Pitocin augmentation and continuous electronic fetal monitoring (Caton, Corry et al. 2002).”
Foto: Ella Hallberg