Doula Recs

I cannot recommend our doula Meadow Evans enough. She is by far the BEST, and trains other doulas too. She is so good she doesn't even have a website :o Her email: greycranewoman [at] gmail.com. Congrats! - Jed

I am in the same boat--considering hiring a doula for the birth of our first child due in March. We are planning on attending "Meet the Doula Night" at BirthWays as a starting point.  The next one is December 16th and you can reserve spots on their website.  Look forward to hearing others' suggestions!

I worked with a doula Meadow Leys, http://greycranembody.com . She is absolutely amazing! Very grounded, responsive, knowledgeable, and got me through 58 hours of labor.

Other places to ask is Facebook group Main Street Mamas East Bay.

We just had our baby with the support of Renata Provost. She was great and I highly recommend her. Her fees include 4 pre-delivery meetings and 3-4 postpartum visits. If you google her, there are some older recommendations for her in BPN and she's also highly reviewed on Yelp. https://www.thebayareadoula.com

Molly Haight is excellent for postpartum care. She also is a birth doula, but we used her 1x per week after our daughter was born 3 months ago. She was extremely reliable, always on time and had great, calming energy. https://mollyhaightyoga.com/thedoula/

Highly recommend her!

I'm working with Doula's by the Bay to interview a few right now. They offer tiered pricing based on how much experience the doula has. My interactions with them have been great so far!

http://doulasbythebay.com/

Birth doulas are clinically proven to improve health outcomes for moms and babies, they are a great addition to any birth team. Post-partum doulas support families in the days and weeks after birth, and can make a huge impact on the transition to motherhood and parenthood. Congrats on your pregnancy! 

I am a postpartum doula who would be happy to help you after you bring your new little one home.  Many people line up doula care in the second trimester of pregnancy, or before. It is generally not to early to reach out to providers and start making plans. More information on my site: http://www.emilyhartlief.com/doula.html

Best, Emily 

I hired Jinny Pagle after interviewing several and she was fantastic. I think it's best to hire as early as possible to form a strong relationship. She does several post-partum visits, beyond that it's an additional charge. 

My doula was Tora Spigner in Berkeley.  She is also a LND Nurse and Intactivist.  Amazing.  Just amazing.  If you're interested in her contact information, please let me know.

We used doulamatch.com to find doulas to interview. We went with Renata Provost after interviewing several. We started interviewing at about 5 months, and all of the doulas really appreciated us looking on the early side of the birth.

We had a WONDERFUL experience 2 years ago with the team of Shoshana Friedman-Hawk and Lori Jaffe. Lori also does PP care, though we didn't end up using that aspect of her skill set so can't speak to it directly. What we can say: we booked about 6 months out from our due date, found them through a Meet-the-Doula event at Birthways in Berkeley (basically like doula/client speed dating :)). They gave us a complementary first meeting to get a sense of each other's energy and whether we might work well together; their fees also included 1 additional prenatal visit (where we talked about things like how to use our space during early labor, when to call them, what we wanted our birth to be like, etc.), 1 postpartum visit (where they showed us how to use a baby carrier and reassured us that we really, truly would get on a schedule and that wearing clean underwear was a milestone for 2 weeks after bringing baby home!), and our labor. I was induced, so our labor was LONG (multi-day) and Lori was with us literally the whole time, sleeping in her car or in our hospital room. She gave me backrubs, ordered my husband to lie down and take a nap when things were slow, and took beautiful photos of our daughter in the first minutes of her life outside. Shoshana also came by despite not being "on duty" (they alternate on-call weeks, which gives you the benefit of knowing your "backup doula" [a pretty common aspect of the service given that doulas have private lives and commitments and etc.]), and was also available to chat with us on the phone after we freaked out a bit the night we brought our daughter home. We would use them again in a second. Highly, highly highly recommend :)