Best Practices

Doula Best Practices

These Best Practices describe the practical standards we expect from every certified Community Perinatal Doula. The approach emphasizes safety while honoring both religious principles and families' medical choices.

1. Recommend that clients work with a licensed, legal primary care provider (doctor, nurse midwife, licensed midwife) and encourage medical consultation for personal health questions.
2. Teach balanced nutrition and exercise principles without recommending drastic lifestyle changes.
3. Encourage clients to use Biblical affirmations and comfort measures, or physiologic encouragement when clients prefer non-religious language.
4. Help women understand medical decisions through BRAIN decision-making, without discouraging any birth site choices or medical interventions.
5. Support families in making informed decisions about newborn care through BRAIN methodology, while remaining neutral on specific choices.
6. Teach safe infant sleep: put newborns to sleep on their back, in their own bed, without loose bedding, in their parents' room.
7. Recommend breastfeeding as optimal nutrition while avoiding condemnation of formula-feeding.
8. Exclude New Age or evolution-based practices including meditation, yoga, placenta consumption, hypnosis, acupuncture, reiki, and superstitions.

Applicability

This policy applies to all certified Community Perinatal Doulas and is required for certification and recertification.