Name:

This self-study guide will help you prepare for your scheduled doula training. As you complete the required reading and attend the childbirth classes, complete the following questions. Some questions have right and wrong answers and other questions are designed to make you think. Bring this completed guide to your training.

1. What is your personal philosophy of birth?

2. If you are observing a childbirth education class, what do you think the instructor's philosophy of birth is?

3. What is the role of the doula? Name two things a doula does not do.

4. List 10 comfort measures that the doula may use.

5. How can the doula be of help to the laboring woman's family?

6. What are the four stages of labor?

7. What are the three phases of Stage I of labor? What are typical responses from the laboring woman during the three phases?

8. Describe normal physiological pushing.

9. List five positions the mother can use for pushing.

10. What part of pain relief in labor do endorphins play?

11. To what do the terms "anterior position" and "posterior position" refer?

12. List 4 comfort measures for a woman experiencing back labor.

13. List 2 common myths about episiotomies.

14. List two situations that sometimes make a cesarean birth necessary.

15. List three situations in which a cesarean is always (or nearly always) necessary.

16. What is the difference between internal and external electronic fetal monitoring? What are the benefits and risks of electronic fetal monitors in general?

17. What effects can narcotics have on the baby and the labor?

18. What effects can an epidural have on the baby and the labor?

19. What is the name of the test done at one minute and five minutes after birth? Name the five things that it evaluates.

20. What types of controlled breathing have you observed in classes, videos, and births you have attended? How have these helped or not helped the laboring woman?

21. If you have had a baby yourself, think of the most difficult challenge you faced. How could a doula have helped you (or if you had a doula, how did a doula help you) meet that challenge?

22. What do you think will be your biggest challenge as you begin your work as a doula?

Developed by Ann Tumblin, BA, LCCE, FACCE, CD(DONA)