Kyle Kellams: It is Community Doula Week. Doulas are trained, non-medical professionals that help with pregnancy and postpartum support. Ozarks at Large checked in with Liyah Wasson, executive director and co-founder of the Doula Alliance of Arkansas, yesterday to learn a bit more about doulas.
Liyah Wasson: When you have a doula, the information is customized to you — you and your partner, your familial support. It's designed for your needs specifically. We can give a whole lot of general information, but then when it comes down to your specific health and predicament and the hospital that you're in, and then even the physical support — having a doula there to kind of split up the work, maybe with your partner. If you don't have a partner who's with you for whatever reason, then your doula kind of stands in. They do hip squeezes through labor and contractions. I'll meet you at home and kind of offer some guidance before you transition to the hospital, maybe.
And then in the postpartum, there is nothing that you can read that can replace a postpartum doula, because we know that the maternal mortality and morbidity rates are highest in the postpartum period. And that's not because people are ignorant or uneducated. It's because of a lack of resources. A lot of people just don't have access. Medicaid only goes to six weeks out in Arkansas. And in my own personal experience as a doula, a lot of moms are going to put themselves on the back burner when it comes to their own health when they have a brand new baby at home.
Very recently, just in the last few months, I had a client who needed to go to the emergency room postpartum, but she was like, but the baby's napping, and when he wakes up he's going to need to feed. And she really just needed somebody in her corner to say, all of that makes sense, but that baby needs his mama. She ended up going to the emergency room, and she did end up being admitted for sepsis. If she had not made that decision to go to the hospital and she needed that little push, then there's a chance that she may not have even been here, or that things just would have gotten so much worse.
Kellams: What does it take to become a doula?
Wasson: It takes training to become certified. There are a lot of different training organizations that certify doulas, and of course we're seeing more pop up as doulas gain more attention nationally. In the state of Arkansas, there's only one organization that trains and certifies doulas, and that's Ujima Maternity Network. The Doula Alliance of Arkansas has partnered with them to train and certify doulas across the state. And then there are also organizations like DONA International — they're pretty well known — and Birthing Advocacy Doula Training. There are just many, many different trainings that all offer different curriculums.
That's where the Doula Alliance has worked with the state for Act 965 to really lock down our core competencies to be a community-based doula in Arkansas. We created these pillars with our board of experienced doulas and OB-GYNs and stakeholders, covering different levels of anatomy and physiology of childbirth and pregnancy, physical comfort measures, building out a resource list for your area. Usually it's like a two-to-five day training that you go through, and then you go out in the field and get experience. And in my opinion, as a doula, that is the most important part of the work. You can read all the books, you can watch all the videos, you can listen to all of the things. But that wisdom comes from going out in the field and really gaining that hands-on experience of what it's like to work with families, work within the hospital systems, work alongside medical providers, and really helping people navigate through all of the challenges and things that can come with pregnancy and postpartum.
Kellams: Liyah Wasson is executive director and co-founder of the Doula Alliance of Arkansas. This is Community Doula Week. Our conversation took place yesterday by Zoom, and there is much more from that conversation that we're going to hear on an upcoming edition of Ozarks at Large.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
