Birth Right: Interview With a Local Doula

While she didn’t know it at the time, the passion 33-year-old Lana DeLowe had for mothers and babies when she was a child would eventually translate into her current-day career choice.

DeLowe, who has now been in practice for five years as both a birth and post-partum doula, helps to educate women and their partners about their childbirth choices and provides comfort during delivery and helps mothers in the weeks afterwards.

Doulas of North America, aka DONA, the largest certifying organization for doulas, has 7,000 members, 3,000 who are certified birth doulas and 300 certified postpartum doulas, according to, Lori Hill, DONA’s directer of public relations.

DeLowe, who grew up in Israel and for the past two years lived on Sterling Place at Vanderbilt before suddenly moving back to Israel two weeks ago, got interested in working with families with small children watching her parents run an early intervention center for babies with special needs and by taking care of infants and their mothers in a baby house of a kibbutz.

Ultimately, the 33-year-old’s career fell into focus later in life. After working in special education, she met a doula at a party who invited her to attend a birth. 

“It was so interesting...I sometimes feel like you do things in life and it just kind of feels right,” she said.

Prospect Heights Patch sat down with this busy mother of one (and due for her second in August) to find out what drives her; why she has dedicated herself to the intense work of helping a woman and her partner through one of life’s most momentous events, the birth of a baby.

Below are our questions and her answers, portions of which were condensed:

Q: What is the life of a doula like?  It seems hard, not knowing when a client is going to go into labor and you will need to go out for 36 hours or whatever.

A: At this point, I only take on three or four births a month. Still “... it’s definitely not a lifestyle that is cut out for everybody. You know?  You have to be pretty open to the unpredictable and accept it with open arms basically and especially, if you have a family, it’s having a supportive partner.”

Q: What do you do as a doula?

A: My philosophy is to support women in whatever way works for them. For different people that means different things. Some of my clients want epidurals (regional analgesia). Some don't want any pain medication. Others want pain medication but never get it because their labor progresses too quickly. Labor can be intense and complex. “I think having somebody continuously with you without judgements and just there to support you in whatever you choose is pretty amazing.”

Q: You said the very first birth you witnessed was intense. What was the experience like for you?

A: “I felt extremely honored to be present there and to be witnessing this miracle happening and I still feel that way at every birth.”

Q: What has been your most challenging moment?

What is challenging is when people don’t educate themselves so they are not informed about the different options they have. “If you go to a high risk practice and you want a low-intervention, unmedicated birth, that’s going to be really challenging for you because the doctors that are high risk work a lot with women that need a lot of help and need a lot of intervention.”

Q: Do you ever get tired?

“Oxytocin (the “love hormone” released during labor and other times) is definitely contagious so I feel like a lot of births I come home from I’m still kind of on a rush after, so that can definitely be helpful for a few hours.”

As a doula you have to be aware of what you’re able to handle because when you’re with someone in labor you need to be there 100 percent. “You almost have to leave yourself outside in a way.”

“It can be physically challenging, but it can also be emotionally challenging. I think it’s important to make sure you’re drinking and have some kind of self care.”

Q: What has been your most rewarding experience as a doula?

A: I had a client who had a VBAC (vaginal birth after Caesarean). The Caesarean section she had for her first child been traumatizing and she didn’t know if she could trust her body to have a successful VBAC, but she did it.

“You know things came into place and she was so powerful and strong and committed to doing it the way she had hoped for and labored really, really nicely at home and ... had her baby vaginally.”  The experience led the woman to a sense of confidence and empowerment.

Q: How do medical staff respond to you?

A: Some nurses are happy that we are there. Hospitals are so understaffed that some see how we can help relieve their workload. “But there are definitely some nurses that don’t like us and feel that we interfere.”  I try to make myself invisible and say out of the way of hospital staff.

Q: Do you ever feel like you have to figure out the dynamics between the husband and the wife or the partners?

As doulas we do a lot of preparation with couples in advance to figure out what their birth wishes are, how they’ve handled stressful situations in the past as individuals and as couples. We have “intimate” conversations about how they want to be supported before they have the baby.

I usually come into a room where a mother is laboring very quietly and kind of see what a couple is doing. I’ll figure out their ritual and rhythm and join them after I see what is working or not.

 
Q: Birth is a passion. What is the best part for you?

A: I love taking pictures of parents with their new babies.  “Seeing these people become parents and seeing them hold their baby ... the look in their eyes. There’s just something that you can’t quite describe moments after their child has been born.”