People are afraid to be vulnerable in our culture today. And vulnerability in labour and in birth is a must. You actually have to open yourself up to feel vulnerable, to allow the baby to come. And I believe that labour and birth is designed that way. You're never more vulnerable than when you're holding a baby at 3:00am, who will not shut up. Your whole life has changed, and you're thinking, "What the heck have I done?!" 🙂 And there's a reason you have to work through that and go through the otherside. It's hard to feel that vulnerability when you're in a space where you might feel out of your depth, in a hospital room for example, where there's bright lights or strangers you haven't met before. And you're naked for example, or you've put on a hospital gown, which for me is a really subtle way of suggesting you're a "patient". When we look at the doula's role in all of that... They're there to hold that space so the woman can feel vulnerable. To turn the lights down. To ask, "Does everybody have to be in this room right now?" Doing a really good birth plan, a birth preference or wish list, prior to getting in that space, so that the doula can speak to that document. Because a woman in labour should not have to fight for what she wants. That is counterintuitive to the place she needs to be. She needs to be in that love bubble. If she's got oxytocin and love flowing, she's going to have a great labour and birth. And so, in those vulnerable moments, you're encouraging her to dig a little deeper and find that strength that women have, that we don't normally tap into. And work through that to come out the other side.

RENEE ADAIR | BIRTH & POST-NATAL DOULA & FOUNDER OF THE AUSTRALIAN DOULA COLLEGE Tweet This!