Ms Kanwal Haq, a doula, demonstrates virtually how her client could use a scarf to relieve pressure in the hips during pregnancy, at her home in New York. NEW YORK – Ms Kanwal Haq, a New York-based doula, was on a plane home from a vacation when she received a text from her client: “It’s game day here.” The baby was arriving a week earlier than planned.
“They are keeping me in triage right now, though, because I’m only 3cm,” her client, Ms Alyssa Coats-Clark, wrote. “But, boy, do these contractions hurt.” “Let’s get baby boy Ezra here,” Ms Haq wrote back, adding a series of suggestions on what Ms Coats-Clark could ask the nurses for to reduce her discomfort.
It was the first birth Ms Haq, 34, had helped with. And, although she had not envisioned doing so while in the air, the plan was always to support Ms Coats-Clark, who lives in Indiana, remotely. Ms Haq, in conversation over text with her client, as well as her husband and mother, was able to support the delivery from afar, offering guidance about labour positions, pain relief and insights into how things would probably progress.
“I was still getting the support I needed from the people closest to me, while Kanwal was giving them the tools and the things they needed to be that support,” Ms Coats-Clark said. Roughly 6 per cent of pregnant mothers in the United States have sought the care of doulas, who have expertise in pregnancy and childbirth and offer non-medical services. Studies have found t.