Jefferson resident and practicing doula Lindsey Coyne isn’t deterred by the Greene County Medical Center’s shuttered maternity unit. She feels local moms-to-be can still use her skills as they travel to give birth. “Hospital experiences feel overwhelming anyway,” she says. “What a great position to hold to be that person who provides continuous reassurance that everything is going the way it’s supposed to go.” ANDREW McGINN | JEFFERSON HERALD

The Doula next door

Jefferson may have lost its OB doctor, but it just gained a doula

By ANDREW MCGINN a.mcginn@beeherald.com

It’s been nearly six years since Jake and Catherine Wilson’s first daughter, Ingrid, came into the world after a grueling 36 hours of labor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

The woman they credit with sticking by them as hospital staff came and went  — a hired professional known as a doula — still warrants a spot on the Wilsons’ Christmas card list every year.

“With things not going the way we had planned, it was really comforting to have someone in the room who had been through a lot of these births, including births like ours that didn’t follow the script,” said Jake Wilson, a 1995 graduate of Jefferson-Scranton High School who now lives in Somerville, Mass. “She was great at reassuring us that even though it felt like things were going off the rails, it was all totally normal and we were still on track.”

It’s entirely possible you’ve never heard of a doula.

Only 3 percent of births are attended by one.

Because of that, it’s easy to snicker at the Wilsons’ use of one as something only city folks are goofy enough to spend money on.

But like $5 cups of coffee and yoga lessons — two things you might never have predicted 20 years ago would now be commonplace in small-town America — Lindsey Coyne is hoping Jefferson is ready for a doula like her.

Coyne, 35, is quite possibly Greene County’s first certified doula.

“My role is to be the calm, reassuring support person that they need,” Coyne explained Monday, the first day of spring and a few days shy of the start of World Doula Week, an annual observance that began in Israel in 2010.

Hiring a doula to attend a birth might soon be as common as that $5 cup of java you now can’t start your morning without.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists last month issued an opinion declaring that continuous, one-to-one emotional support provided by personnel such as a doula is associated with improved outcomes for women in labor, including shortened labor, a decreased need for pain medication, fewer operative deliveries and fewer reports of dissatisfaction.

“If we could replace epidurals with doulas,” Coyne said, “everyone would enjoy their birth much more.”

Plus, the college noted, hiring a doula is cheaper than having a C-section.

Of course, anything having to do with childbirth is subject to timing.

And for Coyne, an Illinois native who moved to Jefferson a year and a half ago with husband Adam, it was always her plan to offer doula services locally.

She had no way of knowing the Greene County Medical Center in 2016 would permanently shut down its 79-year-old maternity unit due to operating losses.

A recent study found that nationwide, rural women are now having to travel an average of 29 miles to give birth — Greene County women have since joined their ranks.

But that doesn’t mean Greene County women are suddenly going to stop having babies.

Coyne is willing to travel. In fact, she’s accepting clients within a 75-mile radius of Jefferson.

“I will go with them to Des Moines,” she said.

Jake Wilson is more than convinced they got their money’s worth when they hired a doula.

“Even though we ended up doing a C-section,” he explained, “it was invaluable having her there. With a long labor, we were often left alone in the room by the doctors and even the nurses for long periods. Sometimes over an hour at a time.

“Labor was much more intense for my wife than she was expecting, and it was stressful for me to try to keep her calm and focusing on her breathing.”

“I can’t imagine my wife being alone in that situation without any idea what was going on,” he added.

Coyne said people are increasingly researching unmedicated, natural births at a time when epidural anesthesia is used in more than 50 percent of all hospital deliveries.

“A natural birth looks nothing like it does on TV,” Coyne is quick to note, dismissing the image of a woman shrieking in pain.

Inserted into the area surrounding the spinal cord, an epidural numbs the lower half of a woman’s body.

“We have been taught that we can’t do it without drugs,” Coyne said. “Our culture has shifted toward relying on medication for everything.”

Coyne said medication, in turn, can lead to complications with breast-feeding, as the baby enters the world essentially drugged.

“When you have an epidural, you are confined to the bed. You can no longer move,” she said, adding that doulas are trained to position women to aid in comfort and progress labor.

Coyne also specializes in hypnobirthing, a method of self-hypnosis that relaxes the body.

The Mayo Clinic reports that research on hypnobirthing is mixed, but it could be an effective tool in reducing labor pain.

“Since birth has been taken out of the home, it’s become a very medical thing,” she said.

“Women in labor aren’t ill,” she added. “They aren’t incapable of caring for themselves.”

In the 1983 movie “The Meaning of Life,” the British comedy troupe Monty Python brilliantly satirized modern childbirth, showing a sweaty mom-to-be being wheeled into a delivery suite filled with all manner of machines (including one whose purpose is unknown, except that it “goes ping.”)

“What do I do?” the woman asks.

“Nothing dear,” responds John Cleese, playing a doctor, “you’re not qualified!”

“It doesn’t take a whole lot to get someone into a state of high adrenaline,” Coyne said, noting that a woman in labor at a hospital is likely to be hooked up to IVs and monitors.

In between regular cervical checks, they may even be asked to rattle off their insurance info.

Coincidentally, studies have estimated as much as 20 percent of women rate their birth experience as negative.

Coyne likes to break down what’s wrong with modern childbirth in terms of livestock.

“When our livestock gives birth, do we rush in and start shining lights on them?” she asked. “We let them be. We let them have a safe, quiet corner to be in.

“We have the same response to stress animals do.”

A doula skilled in touch, massage and breathing techniques might be best likened to the Sherpa you’d hire before scaling Mount Everest.

A doula isn’t to be confused with a midwife. Coyne is only present as a continuous source of physical and emotional support, and performs no medical procedures.

“I do not catch babies,” she said. “I do not do blood pressure or fetal monitoring.”

In Jake Wilson’s case, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston — considered one of the best in the world — was welcoming of doulas.

“I wasn’t sure how they would feel about it,” he said, “but they didn’t bat an eye when we told them we had a doula.”

Coyne, who has a bachelor’s degree in human nutrition and dietetics from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, was admittedly unaware what a doula even was until a neighbor began studying to be one.

“She was lending me the books as she finished them,” she said.

The books addressed natural, unmedicated labor and its benefits to both mother and baby.

Coyne underwent training to be a doula in St. Louis with DONA International. She was pregnant at the time with son Julius, now 4½.

She soon attended her first of 15 births — and was hooked.

“Women have always supported women in labor,” Coyne said. “Before we turned to hospitals, it was always a group of women supporting.

“There is something intuitive between women that men may not be capable of understanding.”

That might be something not even a machine that goes ping can match.

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