Doula for Kaiser Oakland delivery

I highly recommend Renata Provost https://www.thebayareadoula.com

She was my doula for our birth at Kaiser Oakland.  I'm so grateful for her. 

I highly recommend Allison Stanton - https://www.allisonstantondoula.com/. She was incredible prenatal, during labor and delivery (30+ hours), and postpartum. I truly can't think of a better partner to have during pregnancy.

We loved our doula (Clara Love) through the Golden Gate Doula association. She was amazing. We plan on staying in touch and getting her to support all future deliveries as well. 

https://clara.love/

We worked with Samsarah Morgan through Doulas by the Bay and she was truly amazing. Did 1-1 birth education, helped me process some issues with my first birth, helped facilitate the birth I wanted, helped with healing throughout post partum. I could not recommend her more. 

Definitely interview a few different doulas when making your choice.

Highly recommend Empathic Doula!

I gave birth in August at Kaiser Oakland and we went through Doulas by the Bay to find our doula. We hired Jessica Garcez and she was AMAZING.

I highly recommend Teri Nava-Anderson of Harmony Doula. Teri was with me for my second L&D at Kaiser Oakland. I wanted to understand what can be done anatomy-wise to have a vaginal birth with minimal pelvic floor damage (didn’t go well in the first labor). Teri brought that to me and more. For example, she taught me body work that can be done in the months leading up to labor that help stretch tendons and get the baby in the best position possible. During labor and delivery, Teri was a calm and strong presence that allowed me to lean into the experience. I ended up having a magical experience (challenging too, don’t get me wrong :)).

Good luck!

I recommend Yula the doula!
I gave birth at Kaiser Oakland and my doula was amazing. I had a very complicated birth experience and I’m lucky to have had Yula as my doula. She’s knowledgeable, so intelligent, experienced, and was a great help to not only me but to the delivery team like doing warm compresses to avoid/minimize tearing (delivery team does NOT do those even though studies show it’s helpful!).

Also, while waiting to reach active labor several times the team “freaked out” that baby’s heart rate was down and started rushing / pressuring for c-section, and Yula’s advice helped avoid that scenario (like, change position or baby maybe moved slightly away from the monitor). Sure enough I’d change position and they’d move the monitor and find the heartbeat was perfect.

also, the nurses kept saying they don’t have a portable monitor, but Yula knew they did and I was able to advocate & insist on it and I did get one so I could walk around.

if all goes smoothly, a doula is a nice thing to have. But if not, you want a doula like Yula on your side.

https://yulapaluy.com/doula

I want to second a prior posters recommendation for Yula Paluy. I just birthed at Kaiser Oakland about a week ago and was successful in my VBAC attempt, despite having a baby with a 98th percentile head! Yula did an amazing job advising us on a variety of strategic decisions throughout the process and being direct when needed with the medical team. There were a couple times where i had breakthrough pain on my epidural and I would not have known to directly ask for anesthesia to check back in as apparently the nurses are all trained to discourage that. Also, one of the nurses was adamant about me pushing in a position that didn't seem to be effective, and Yula helped us transition to the effective one that ultimately led to baby's arrival. Also, when i was in early labor both at home and at the hospital, we had several helpful checkins before making decisions. Wishing you a wonderful birth experience!