Emotional Intelligence for the Doula

By understanding your emotions, you can move adeptly through your current challenges and prevent future ones.

Source: How Emotional Intelligence Can Boost Your Career — And Save Your Life

The above statement is why we teach Emotional Intelligence here at International Doula Institute to all of our new doulas.

“Decades of research now point to emotional intelligence as the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack.”

It’s one of many pieces of what sets IDI doulas apart from the rest. Emotional Intelligence for the doula is so important to allow us to have a better understanding of ourselves, our motivations, behavior and most important, love and empathy for our clients and improvement of our ability to connect with our clients.

By teaching emotional intelligence to our doulas, they are able to have improved thinking skills, improved personal effectiveness, better self-management, better professional relationships and improved leadership capability. These are such important pieces of being a great doula, gaining the trust of our clients so that we can most effectively educate them on the things they want to learn from their doula to become better parents as they grow into their own roles in the family.

We teach emotional intelligence to our students to harness the great power of emotional intelligence to improve their doula work tremendously and become leaders in their doula communities.

Why Emotional Intelligence Matters At Work

Parent Magazines’ Holly Pevzner interviews Aliza Bancoff, founder of International Doula Institute about postpartum doulas:

“There once was a village. Then there was just you and your partner. But today, more and more new moms are discovering a somewhere-in-between solution that involves hiring a care specialist for the baby (and new mom) to help out in the days and weeks following birth. Find out if you should consider hiring a postpartum doula.

What is a postpartum doula?

“A postpartum doula is a professional support person who’s trained to help not only the baby, but the family as well, in the days or months after birth,” says Aliza Bancoff, a birth and postpartum doula in Philadelphia and founder of International Doula Institute, an online training and certification program. Doulas provide education about infant care, like how to burp and bathe your baby. They look after your newborn so you can rest and recharge, knowing your little one is in good hands. “We also offer support in the practical side of things: Laundry, dishes, housework, cooking, errands,” says Bancoff. “Essentially, we mother the new mother, nurturing her so she can nurture her precious new baby.” (A baby nurse, on the other hand, solely focuses on the baby’s needs.)”

Read the entire article here:

http://www.parents.com/pregnancy/giving-birth/doula/should-you-hire-a-postpartum-doula/

Certified doulas trained through International Doula Institute offer non-judgmental support. We know the struggles that moms go through. In fact,  most of us are also moms. So we know all about the sanctimommies first hand.  Many of us became doulas because we experienced so much judgement in the early days. From our mother, from our mother in law, from our sisters and sisters-in-law and our facebook friends and our church friends and the list just goes on and on. Everyone has an opinion about how you should raise your children. And often times your best friend and your moms advice are exact opposites!

Sanctimommies. We all know at least one, but hopefully you’ve unfollowed her on Facebook. She does everything better than you, is more conscious, her kids eat and sleep better, overall she’s just a better mom, right? Well, the Facebook version of her is, anyway. Follow http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sanctimommy on Facebook for hilarious posts that will keep you sane in a world full of bat shit crazy moms. Here are ten of their best posts. | From momsbelike

So how do we as moms step away from the sanctimommy wars?

Enter Doula Versus Sanctimommy.

Having a doula present in the home during those early days is so helpful. At International Doula Institute, we put a very high importance on non-judgemental support. We aren’t your best friend, we aren’t your mother in law.  All of our doulas are trained to understand how to best present educational materials in an unbiased way, fairly presenting all current information regarding parenting styles/choices and hot topics debate so furiously. So we won’t be telling you how to parent, we will present information to you and  provide you encouragement in your own parenting voice and choice. We are their to walk by your side through your parenting firsts.

Forget the mommy wars and parent your way.

Source: The Ten Most Sanctimommy Posts Ever

Last month the ACOG announced it’s partnership with Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) join their efforts to help lower the maternal mortality rates in the US. According to the article, “the U.S. was one of eight countries where maternal death rates worsened between 2003 and 2013”.

The organization AIM is accepting applications for state awarded funds to reduce these poor outcomes.

Mark S. DeFrancesco, MD, President of ACOG says, “ACOG has long recognized the need to address maternal mortality in the United States, and our practice recommendations present a wide variety of tactics to improve obstetrical outcomes,”

The main focuses of this program are targeting childbirth complications such as severe hypertension, hemorrhage, venous thromboembolism and lowering the low-risk primary cesarean birth rates. On that note, and of much interest in the doula community is the statement put out by ACOG last year(2014) in which ACOG urged it’s constituents to utilize the services of birth doulas to help lower the primary cesarean rates.

Source: Leading Health Organizations Launch State-Based Care Programs Through the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health – ACOG