What does a Postpartum Doula really do?

Sometimes you know exactly what you’ll need after you bring your baby home – and very often you don’t! Either way, the postpartum period for any family generally includes high highs and sometimes very low lows. Having a trusted, supportive postpartum doula can ensure that your families needs get identified and tended to with the love and tenderness they deserve – whether these are emotional, physical or educational. Sometimes that looks like a hot, healthy meal and another set of hands to hold your baby for a couple of hours, and sometimes it means connecting you with a specialist for an unexpected concern that may arise after delivery, and other times it’s help identifying your baby’s feeding or sleepy cues so you can get into a rhythm together.

The postpartum period is a time of deep transition and transformation. And how you’re made to feel as a parent during this sacred time is important and can impact your connection with your baby, your partner, and your community.

Sophie finds deep meaning and feels enormous gratitude to each of the family’s she supports. To see each family, their triumphs and tribulations, their vulnerabilities, their strengths – it is a true honor to witness these moments and support them during this transition.

Daytime postpartum doula care includes a range of emotional, physical and educational support elements

Postpartum recovery support consult with Sophie Ward, MPH, for families in Cambridge, MA.

Emotional Support

  • Sharing your baby’s birth story and processing some of the feelings and emotions that can arise during the process

  • Discussing feelings around changes in identity, relationship adjustments, familial relations

  • Finding support for the full (and normal) range of emotions one can experience after the birth of a baby or after welcoming a baby into the family: anxiety, low self-esteem, joy, rage, sadness, grief, irritability, nostalgia – the list is endless!

  • Support identifying when persistently low mood has moved beyond the baby blues and may require additional professional support (i.e. postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, etc.)

Toys in a nursery for postpartum recovery support with Sophie Ward, MPH, for families in Cambridge, MA.

Physical Support

  • Help with laundry, and other household chores like dishes, tidying the kitchen or nursery

  • Cooking –a mid-day meal or meal prep for dinner (or something to store in the freezer for when you need a quick and healthy solution!)

  • Holding, soothing, or diapering baby so you can take an uninterrupted shower or nap or just time for yourself

  • Nursery organization and restocking of baby items

You deserve to be held

Sophie Ward, MPH, postpartum doula providing support to new parents and changing the baby in Cambridge, MA.

Educational Support

  • Bathing baby or educating parents on how to bathe their baby

  • Education about baby sleep/hunger/other cues and developmental milestones

  • Gear – how to use all the wonderful baby gadgets you’ve purchased and/or been gifted (for example, swaddles, carriers, strollers, swings, etc.!)

  • Help with breastfeeding, pumping and bottle feeding

  • Helping to set up different (discrete!) changing stations around your living space