doula, birth assisstant

[new nursing student]

hi, i am currently in my first year of a nursing degree, which i am doing in order to become a midwife,and start up a home birth business, however i have just looked into becoming a doula, birth assisstant, and am considering training as 1 (which seems realatively simple) and working as 1 whilst studying nursing. does anybody now much about this? could i maybe just be a doula when trained as a RN, and make a good profit out of it, or would this be a waste of my nurse training? would i be better training as a midwife, but then this is also a option for the future?

any advice would be appreciated, unsure of whether it would be a waste of time, and if there is even much demang for doulas.

oh im in qld australia by the way,

thanks

kj

[ljds]

You need to contact local doulas. Most doulas I know do not make a living exclusively from their doula work. I suppose in larger cities it is possible. But how could you commit to working full time as a doula when going to school; are you going to skip classes and clinicals for births? If you can't be on call 100% of the time, you need to find (and pay for) back up, or you won't be getting very many clients.

Most doulas consider their work as doulas as a separate entity from nursing or midwifery; not as a means to attain those positions. That said, there are some doulas who will attach themselves to a particular midwife or group of midwives; occasionally a midwife or doc will even include doula work in her/his OB package, enabling a doula to have regular business AND learn alot.

My question to you is, what is your experience with homebirth, birth in general, and midwifery? How do you expect your doula work to help you? If you can detail that to yourself, you can probably figure out which environment you need to doula in (hospital, birth center, home), and whether you will be able to get enough business to support yourself (which, as I said earlier, was very doubtful--supplement income, yes, support yourself entirely, no).

Try the midwiferytoday.com and mothering.com forums--they have specific forums for doulas and birth practitioners. READ through the forums before you start posting--probably about 10 people have posted similar questions before you. You can learn alot about how to set up a doula business, what sort of training, how to advertise, how to arrange back up, what being a doula can entail, and how being a doula can play into your education in regards to nursing and midwifery.

Good luck! Doulas are wonderful additions to the pregnancy, birth and post partum environment, in my opinion.