Has anyone regretted having a doula at their birth?

[Aubergenie]

Not sure why anyone would, but I'm just trying to look at both sides of the coin...

Hello Mums & Mums to be! I am a trained doula - having left a full time teaching career to work in a BIRTH context - because I just love Birth and all it entails! I wish I could have had a doula when I had my children, now that I know what a brilliant service we provide! Next best thing to an independant midwife! However, if you can afford the services of an Idependant midwife, I'd go for that! The doula doesn't undermine the role of the Dad either. She supports him as well. often he is the one most petrified - which doesn't help the labouring mother to be! I live in West Yorks - Holmfirth to be precise. I'm happy to cover the whole of West Yorks and some of SouthYorks, Lancs and Derbyshire.

I think that this qualifies as a problem witha Doula

I'd like some thoughts on this situation. We had a Doula for the birth of our Daughter and decided that we would do the same for the recent birth of our son as it worked well the first time.

Unfortunately she did not make it to the the birth due to a 'personal emergency'. I completely understand that her family comes before us and that she needed to be elsewhere but my problem is that she is refusing to repay the £350 that we paid...she has made an offer of a far lower figure due to the fact that she was 'on call' for 19 days before he was born and that she had done an 'antenatal visit' (or pop round for a cuppa), and also to cover her mileage for that visit.

Her contract clearly states that a full refund will be made if she (or her nominated replacement) cannot make the birth, so in a nutshell we paid for a Doula, she didn't make it to the birth, she wants to take part payment contrary to the terms in her contract.

Its not a great deal of money I know but its the principle of the thing, and I feel that she is taking advantage of our good nature.

I wont mention her name as I dont feel that its appropriate too at the moment.

woodyard, I think you need to contact Doula UK and ask for their input. They would take this very seriously and be able to mediate between you if that was necessary.
I can understand charging for being on call, (I would consider charging if the parent's changed their mind after 3 weeks on call, as I would have potentially had to turn down other clients, but not if it was me who cancelled), but I would expect the contract to be honoured. What happened to their named backup?

I'm really intersted in this discussion as I've just begun work as a doula in SE London. In my very recent training we were told to be clear about contracts and that it is OK to charge for on-call time but if the doula didn't make a birth they were on call for and it was the doula's fault then it would be reasonable to refund less expenses and time actually spent with the client. Some doulas give a straight money back guarantee if the client is unhappy- I'd be interested to hear other's views on this- I'm still tinkering with my contract.

Woodyard - you might want to start a new thread specifically about this point? You'll probably get more responses. This is a very old thread.