Doula Services for Expecting Families

Want a personal birth advocate for your pregnancy? Our experienced, compassionate community-based doulas provide peer assistance to expecting parents, ensuring you are seen, heard, and supported from early pregnancy to the months immediately following childbirth.

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What Is a Doula?

A Doula's role is non-clinical guidance that provides those who are pregnant with valuable physical, emotional, and informational support.

Our community-based doulas are non-clinical local health workers who work with pregnant and postpartum parents, their families and their baby as they move through the experience of pregnancy, labor, birth and beyond.

During this life-changing process, doulas educate, encourage, and provide support for birthing parents to aid in successful deliveries as well as proper care for newborns in the first three months after birth.

Hispanic doula feeling pregnant women's belly on sofa.
Successful birth outcome with birthing team

About Our Doula Services

OKBEI’s Community-Based Doula Program (CBDP) improves the health of birthing parents and infants, strengthens families, and establishes support systems for families to ensure their ongoing success. We connect doulas to parents who are of and from their community to provide valuable support and resources during the critical months of pregnancy, birth, and early parenting.

CBDP is a focused, intensive home visiting program in which a local, assigned doula partners with families throughout the pregnancy experience. The program begins early in pregnancy through weekly home visits and continues through labor, during birth, and up to three months of postpartum visits. This promotes better health outcomes for all.

The effectiveness of the program emerges out of the trusting relationship between the community-based doula and the participant, established through the months of pregnancy, birth and early infant care. Consistent, dedicated efforts to center the participant’s experiences and promote their self-advocacy help to ensure happier, healthier, equitable birth experiences for all families in Oklahoma.

What Does the Doula Program Offer?

When you receive doula care through OKBEI, you can count on the following services:

  • Regular in-home visits from your assigned community-based doula
  • Support during labor and delivery
  • Postpartum support for up to 12 months as you learn to care for your infant
  • Non-clinical physical, emotional, and educational support
  • Guidance for breastfeeding/lactation
  • Assistance with developing your birthing plan through evidence-based information regarding pregnancy, birth, and newborn care

Am I Eligible?

To qualify for our doula services, you must:

  • Live in Oklahoma
  • Be no more than 30 weeks pregnant
  • Identify as a person who is Black, Native, Latine, teen, or justice-involved

If you do not fit within the parameters above, please check our independent Community Based Doula Directory.

What Is the Cost?

Our doula services are provided free of charge to those who meet our criteria eligibility. This allows us to effectively support those in need of our services right where they are at, with flexibility and caring throughout their pregnancy.

Testimonials

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Having our doula at the hospital with us was everything we didn't know we needed. Her emotional and physical support, encouragement and ability to stay calm while my whole family was stressing was so needed.
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My doula was always encouraging and supportive. She helped me to problem solve around my cares and concerns as I prepared for labor and delivery, experienced delivery and navigated postpartum. Without my doulas help it would've been extremely challenging to prepare and get support.
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My doula was amazing! I felt very prepared and comfortable for the birth of my son and the after care as well with the help and easiness of my doulas teachings.