My name is Deborah Rotunno, and I am one of the project coordinators for the Winthrop-LIDA Birth Doula Project. The Winthrop-LIDA Birth Doula Project is a coalition of women’s health practitioners at Winthrop University Hospital and Long Island Doula Association, Inc. (LIDA)-trained birth doulas seeking to improve birthing outcomes for mothers in our community. We are hoping to recruit and train individuals interested in offering continuous, evidence-based birth support to women in labor and their partners. The Winthrop-LIDA Project is a unique clinical opportunity for any student interested in:
- Gaining hands-on, meaningful, clinical exposure
- Empowering women to become agents of their bodies and health
- Promoting mother and baby-friendly childbirth initiatives
- Exploring birth doula work, midwifery, or obstetrics as possible professional trajectories
Specifically, birth doulas provide emotional, physical and informational support to women in labor. The benefits of birthing with birth doulas are numerous, including:
- Personalization and respect of individual birthing choices
- Promotion of breastfeeding and maternal-infant bonding
- Increased rates of vaginal delivery
- Acknowledgement of birth as a natural process
- Increased maternal satisfaction
Volunteers will not only gain holistic exposure to the field of women’s health, but will also be fulfilled by their abilities to affect positive change in the diverse patient population they will serve.
Our next training is September 9 & 10, 2017. If your students are interested in registering for the next training and learning about pre-training requirements, please encourage them to reach us at winthroplida@gmail.com.
