Becoming a Voluntary Doula: Personal and Caring Motives

Abstract

Background:Voluntary doula care, as a complement to midwifery care, is emerging as support for women and their families throughout the childbearing period. Doula care is not an official part of the public health care system in Nordic countries.Aim:The aim was to describe and interpret women’s experiences of becoming voluntary unpaid doulas and to generate a model as part of a research program.Method:Latent qualitative content analysis was chosen using interviews with nine voluntary doulas in an NGO group in Finland.Findings:Becoming a voluntary doula seems to be related to two motives, personal and caring. Interest in and fascination with childbearing, doula care as rewarding and joyous but challenging work, and networking and affinity in the doula group are personal motives. The caring motives were seeing doula care as important for the childbearing woman and her partner, being humble about childbearing knowledge, understanding vulnerability and uniqueness in childbearing based on their own experiences, and seeing doula care as a complement to midwifery care.Conclusion:A model has been created suggesting that the balance between the two motives might be crucial for doula care. Ethical reflections on the motives for becoming and being a doula need to be supported in a caring culture where the primary focus is the best care for the woman and her partner in childbearing.