Hospital-based Birth Support for Women with Trauma: A Pilot Study of a Clinical Doula Program in the Netherlands

Pregnancy and childbirth rank among life’s most important events for both women and men. It can also be a stressful experience for women for whom birth in a teaching hospital is indicated, given existing risk factors. A history of trauma may be one of these risk factors. Women generally receive excellent information about medical conditions and their consequences in an academic hospital, but are often not kept abreast of standard hospital protocols. They must also negotiate the hospital’s organizational structure and the frequent shift rotation of providers. Consequently, a busy obstetric unit is challenged to provide a woman and her partner with sufficient opportunity for individual personal and continuous support. A pilot study of continuous doula support within a high-risk obstetric unit in an academic hospital in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, examined how a doula might fulfill this need.