Doulas

Helping Your Pregnant and Breastfeeding Clients Make Informed Decisions

For many women, doulas play an important role in the pregnancy and postpartum journey. As you support your clients during this time of enormous change in their lives, you’re probably fielding a lot of questions from them. When those questions are about how pregnancy and/or breastfeeding could be impacted by exposures in your client’s environment – such as the medications they may need to take, illnesses they may contract, vaccines they may be advised to receive, foods or beverages they consume, substances they use, or exposures in their workplace  – that’s when you and your clients can turn to MotherToBaby. 

We’re the nation’s leading authority and most trusted source of evidence-based information on exposures during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Our experts provide this resource at no-cost and without judgment, and our services are confidential and patient-centered. Our goal is to help pregnant and breastfeeding moms understand the benefit/risk of an exposure for them and for their baby so they can make an informed decision.

We can help by:

• Encouraging your clients to speak with their healthcare providers about immunizations that may be recommended during this specific period of their life, such as seasonal influenza, RSV, COVID-19, and Tdap (Tetanus, Diptheria, and Pertussis). 
• Not only helping your clients understand their exposures but also supporting conversations they may want to have with their healthcare provider about these exposures.
• Assisting your clients who are living with chronic health conditions to plan for how health conditions and their treatments could impact the birth and the postpartum period, ensuring their questions around safety are addressed.  

Whatever environmental exposure your client has questions about, we are here to provide evidence-based information to help them understand how that exposure could affect their pregnancy or their breastfed baby. 

Doula support during pregnancy, birth, and during the postpartum period has been shown to be an effective best practice that can enhance the birthing experience, reduce complications, and improve outcomes for women and infants.

— Knocke et al., 2022

LactRx App

If you’re working with a patient who is breastfeeding or plans to breastfeed, download our LactRx app for on-the-go access to information on exposures about which breastfeeding mothers may have questions.

Our Resources

Explore how we can help you and your pregnant and breastfeeding clients by providing no-cost exposure risk assessments, patient education materials, observational studies to monitor pregnancy outcomes, and more.