As doulas, nothing makes us happier than knowing our clients are in great hands. While birth is unpredictable and has many variables, a caring and evidence-based practicing OB can increase the likelihood of a safe and positive birth experience. Providing clients with OB provider green flags can help them make informed decisions about their care provider.
Here are a few OB provider green flags we love to see:
#1: They Answer Questions With Evidence and Respect
We love an OB who believes there’s no such thing as a silly question. They recognize that while they do birth day in and day out, this is a new experience for most of their patients.
Not only do they make time for questions, they answer with respect and evidence-based information. Sure, they may have opinions and preferences, but they let you know they’re just that. They clarify their preferences, opinions, and anecdotal experience from evidence-based sources. Combining and clarifying these sources of information can help parents make informed decisions.
Most importantly, when a provider answers questions with respect and support, it helps build trust.
#2: OB Provider Green Flag – Always Explains Benefit, Risk, and Supports Choice
A good OB provider explains the benefit, risk, and alternatives of each procedure, exam, test, interventions, etc., so patients can make informed decisions.
Even when something is medically indicated, they recognize that including you in the decision making is vital for an empowering and positive experience.
They also recognize that true informed consent only exists when people have the option for informed denial. If one cannot decline a procedure, that becomes coercion. Rather than pressuring, they provide information and explain why they are recommending something.
By building this trust prenatally, people feel more confident in their OB’s recommendations during birth knowing they respect true informed consent. No one wants to enter birth thinking they will have to fight to be heard during active labor.
#3: They Do Not Use Fear Based Language
As doulas, we’ve seen clients feel pressured into certain procedures or births because of the language used by their provider.
We fully understand and respect that some instances require intervention even if that wasn’t the parent’s initial desire.
However, what matters is how this is presented to parents so they are making truly informed decisions.
If a provider tells parents there’s a 100% increased risk in Y if they do X, that sounds very scary. However, if the risk is 0.02%, that means an increased risk is 0.04%. This is statistically significant and should be discussed. However, an overall risk of 0.04% is still very low.
Parents deserve that information to make an informed decision without unnecessary and exaggerated fear.
When providers use this approach, it also means patients can trust them when there is a serious risk. Like the boy who cried wolf, if every conversation is filled with exaggerated fear, how will parents know when they genuinely need to be concerned? So, a provider who reserves scary terms for genuine situations is a provide parents are more likely to trust in the event of an emergency.
#4: Supports Physiological Birth
A skilled OB knows and understands physiological birth. It does not mean they don’t value and respect or even prefer interventions. But it does mean they understand and respect a patient’s desire to have a physiological birth.
This means that they respect a parent’s preferences and understand they only want intervention if medically necessary. They might offer an induction at 39 weeks, explaining why their practice offers, but they respect a parent’s desire to wait for spontaneous labor.
They do not discourage patients from having a physiological birth, they respect it and simply let them know their options for interventions.
Not every parent desires a physiological birth, but for those who do, they deserve respectful and supportive care.
#5: Parents Leave Appointments Feeling Confident
A huge OB provider green flag is when parents leave appointments feeling confident. OBs should be building up a person’s confidence in their ability to birth, help them know they have safe care, and continue to build trust.
When your clients reach out to you after an appointment feeling excited and looking forward to meeting their baby, you know they have a great provider.
As doulas, we are not telling parents who they should and should not see for obstetrical care. However, we can, and should, provide them with information about red and green flags for providers. With this information, parents can make informed decisions about care.
Whoever our clients end up birthing with, they have us in their corner providing continuous labor support.
Author: Aliza Juliette Bancoff
Aliza Juliette Bancoff is a well-known doula and doula trainer who has been providing doula services to families for over a decade. She is the founder of Main Line Doulas, a doula group providing doula support in the great Philadelphia area for the last decade, the International Doula Institute, which provides online doula training and lactation training and certification programs and the International Breastfeeding Institute which provides lactation training and certification. She is the co-founder of United Birth, a company devoted to increasing access to doulas across the country to make the perinatal time safer both physically and emotionally. “Every birthing person deserves access to quality doula support. And we are working to make that a reality across the country. The work we are doing to get doulas to every birthing person will decrease the black infant and maternal mortality rate significantly by 2030.” Says Bancoff. Aliza is known for her compassionate and empowering approach to doula work, and she has been featured in numerous media outlets, including United Nations Maternal Health Report, Parent Magazine, CafeMom, theBump and many more. Aliza's journey into doula work began when she gave birth to her first child and felt a strong calling...