Why I am a doula

I became a doula because I want to change the world. I know how that sounds but it’s true. Because I truly believe that doula work can and will change the world. Doulas can have such a profound effect at the very beginning of life and that ripples out to impact the whole rest of life.  I don’t know of any other work that so drastically improves a person’s physical, mental, and emotional well being, where I get to help individuals in intimate, sacred, and personal ways on the micro level, and also advocate for broad, badly needed social and cultural change on the macro level, or where both my extremely orthodox Mormon upbringing and raging feminist and social justice warrior political stances make me a better tool to in the work. I became a doula because I love that it’s a balance of evidence based best practices and surrendering to the mystery that I’ve come to call birth magic. I became a doula because I know that women’s bodies were made to do this magic and I have supreme confidence in that fact, but I’m also so thankful that we live in an age of safe and accessible c-sections because I wouldn’t have my little brother Matthew if we didn’t. Doula work will change the world and I am grateful for how much it has changed mine. 

​by Jenna Chidester

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