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Sparkle (7)
My daughter Kayleigh came home a couple of days ago from her gym intensive class with some interesting information. She had been distance walking with a girl in her class who is a nursing student. It turns out she works in the Labour and Delivery unit at a hospital I practically live at. When my daughter told me her name, I was familiar with it. A nice girl, who always greets me with great friendliness. I enjoy working with her. So it was with mixed feelings when I heard from Kayleigh that this nursing student generally doesn't like doulas. Kayleigh informed this young woman that her mom was a doula and mentioned my name, and this is when she said, "Oh, Lesley is one of the few doulas I really like. But most of them I don't like. They take my patients off the monitors and mess with IVs."
What I want to know is WHO of you doulas out there are doing this?! Because you know what? You've gotta stop. I don't know about you, but I have worked long and hard to get in a position where doctors and nurses trust me. In fact, most of my business is through doctor referral. It is this trust that has led to my good success as a doula. I did not sign on to be a doula who works mainly in hospitals because I am personally a big fan of hospital births in general. I'm an avid home birther. But my purpose and my goal is to ensure women get the best possible care within the system they choose. This is not by control, but by support. I truly feel if all members of the team took time to look into each others' hearts, we would most likely find the same intention...to hold a space, the way we know best, for a safe and happy outcome for the mother, father, and baby. We may have different approaches to this goal, but each member has a valuable role that deserves respect.
I personally think it is extremely bad behaviour on a doula's part to fiddle with equipment in a hospital because you are trying to reduce intervention. This is not advocacy! This is blatant rule breaking, and creates the risk of getting us banned from hospitals altogether. In fact, one of my clients told me that at one of the hospitals I work at less frequently, there is a group of family doctors who refuses to work with patients who have doulas. This breaks my heart, because I know if they could only witness a few good experiences with doulas, they would relax, and see the value of our services for their patients. My best experiences are usually ones in which family doctors are involved, and I think these doctors who have banned doulas are denied of seeing the kinds of births that are common with the presence of a good doula. It only takes a couple of bad egg experiences to put people off eggs.
Why should you not take women off the monitors? After all, they're on there way too long a lot of the time. Because, it is not your role. You can track down the nurse and ask her to please take off the fetal monitor, explaining your client has been on it for the required time. In my experience, once I ask permission, I see the beginnings of trust start to happen. The nurses know I am not out to sabotage their work. Imagine being them for a minute. They are responsible for the monitoring of their patients. It is they who usually decide whether or not a doctor needs to come into the room to check things out based on what's going on with the mother and baby. If a nurse is required to have a mother on the monitor because that is the rule of the hospital, she comes back in and you've undone the whole thing, something happens with the baby, who do you think gets in the most trouble? Probably the nurse.
I'm a pretty experienced doula, and am capable of reading a monitor, getting a general sense of how things are with the baby. But I am not qualified to diagnose this for certain. There are probably a lot of things I DON'T know about reading a fetal monitor, and I'm not going to assume anything. If your client wants to take off her monitor, it is her right to do so whenever she wishes. But
