Birth Companions:

Are there differences between working with first-time and experienced moms?

My work as a doula tends to be slightly different with first time mothers as opposed to mothers who have already given birth. With our first time mothers, they tend to be a lot more -- innocent is the word I should use. I don’t really want to use “naïve,” I think innocent is a better word. Whereas they’re not really sure what they’re going to expect, they’re not really sure how they’re going to react, they’ve never been there before. They have a completely different understanding of what it’s like.

A lot of times I tell my first time moms not to watch “The Baby Story.” Because it’s not a very accurate portrayal of what labor looks like in the entire, in the full stream of things. The Baby Story tends to give you birth in 30 minutes and labor, on an average, is 16-18 hours. So, I usually encourage my mothers very strongly, “Don’t watch ‘The Baby Story’” ‘cause you’re not going to get the full feeling of how long this is going to take. And I tell my fathers that as well. Because a father, very easily, will have the thought in his mind, “Okay. We go to the hospital, the baby is born, we go home. There we go. We’re done.” It doesn’t work that way. We’re usually there for the entire day and I try to prepare both of them for that.

First time moms, as I said, because it’s their first time going through it, they will probably have a little more angst, a little bit more nervous energy than a second time mom. But it’s a different kind of nervous energy. It’s a kind of anticipation – “What’s gonna happen next?” – and “Can I do this?”

My second time moms are also a different breed. Depending on what type of birth they had before, if their previous birth was a negative experience, then I usually have to work with fear on them. And the fear is, “Am I going to be able to do it this time? I failed the last time…can I do it this time?” So, there’s a lot of work that has to be done in that, in terms of encouraging the mother, allowing her to, um, really experience her birth and allowing her to believe in herself and her body that she really can birth this baby on her own.

If they had a so-so experience, not really bad, but not really perfect experience, then again it’s still working with that past experience and trying to make sure we realize that every birth is different and everything is going to follow in its natural course. And we don’t have to worry about what happened in the past. Let’s just focus on the future and what’s happening now.

Second time moms, because they’ve been through it already, tend to have a better idea of what’s going to happen next. And usually have a better idea of what they want, and what they DO NOT want. They are usually very clear on what they DO NOT WANT. Whereas my first time moms would be - would say, “Okay, you know, let’s try. Okay.” Second-time moms tend to be very distinct in what they are going for and what they are looking to happen in their birth experience.

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