July 29, 2025
Navigating Birth and Postpartum Backup Support: Podcast Episode #301
Kristin Revere discusses questions to ask your birth or postpartum doula about backups in case of illness or emergency on the latest solo episode of Ask the Doulas Podcast. She also discusses burnout and self-care for individuals working in the birth and baby field.
Hello, hello! This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I have got a special solo podcast episode today. As I have been guesting on podcasts within the last year or so, I noticed in a couple recent interviews that the topic of burnout and backup doulas kept coming up, and I thought a full episode on that topic would be worthwhile for our Ask the Doulas listeners.
I am the matchmaker for not only our birth doula clients, but also our postpartum clients, in finding the perfect doula or team of doulas to support them in birth or after they have their baby and are seeking day or overnight doula care. And so one of the biggest questions that I often get would be, “What happens if my birth doula is at another birth or is ill or can’t make it in time?” At Gold Coast, we have a team approach. When I launched Gold Coast Doulas in 2015, we were the first doula agency in our area of West Michigan to introduce a shared call model. So our birth doulas worked in teams, and two doulas supported our clients throughout pregnancy, and one doula attended the birth. If the birth was lengthy, the partner could come in and back up the other doula, say it was a multiple-day induction. Or if there was illness or a doula was at another birth – we always had someone that our clients knew there.
But over time, I found that some of our doulas and some of our clients preferred an individual model of care, so currently, my agency offers a mix of partner support for births by hiring a team, or hiring an individual doula and relying on our team for backup in case of weather or illness or emergency. It helps knowing that we all practice the same way and know the importance of continuity of care and for things like certification requirements. As the owner, I have trust in my team because they’ve been vetted by me, and we do continued education. It is as seamless an experience as possible with birth doulas, whether it’s a team or an individual doula and a backup is needed.
I know when I worked as a solo doula, I was backing up other doulas in my area or relied on backup myself, and it could be a little bit overwhelming because doulas come into a birth and don’t have the birth plan or don’t know the client and have no background information, the way we can share as an agency. And so I would go and do my best to attune to the needs of a client without ever having met them and not having more information than their basic goals and the name of the birthing person and their partner. That can be challenging. And sometimes with solo doulas, you can’t find a backup if your contacts are limited or if those doulas are ill or at a birth already or unable to get childcare. Certainly, you would want to ask your potential doula about their backup plan during an interview, and if it’s an agency, how do they place the backup, and would it be a similar experience level, like we have at Gold Coast, if a backup is needed to get called in.
And then for postpartum doulas, we have a large team, and I find that some clients want to keep with a particular schedule. So if a doula is ill – or some of our postpartum doulas are birth doulas, so if that postpartum doula is at a birth and not able to leave the birth to attend their scheduled postpartum shift, our clients are most of the time able to get that shift filled, even last minute, with another doula from our team. And some of our clients who want a lot of support for an extended amount of time – at Gold Coast, we work through the first year, offering day and overnight care – we might have ten different doulas working with a particular family if they want a mix of day and overnight, or if they hire us after the baby is born, and we can’t guarantee one or two doulas, but we do rely on a communication form so our doulas are able to be updated on how to best support the parent, everything from where to park to what the goals are. And it is, again, as seamless of an experience as we can potentially make it.
So as you are interviewing not only birth doulas but postpartum doulas, especially if you have a schedule with specific needs, say daytime 10:00 to 4:00, Monday, Wednesday, Friday – sometimes things come up. I’ve had doulas on my team have childcare issues, and we are able to get a replacement doula if, say, the team member has a sick child at home and it is not safe to support our families. The same goes with birth, if they need someone to come in, even for 30 minutes before they’re able to get childcare and leave their home for a birth that wasn’t planned.
And so asking those questions during interviews or upon hire and making sure that you feel comfortable is very important. And then there are some insurance plans that have some limits on the amount of doulas that can work with a family and the backup doulas, say if it’s a Medicaid client, and your state accepts Medicaid, then that doula who’s doing backup would need to be approved by your insurance. So it is, again, a good question to ask during interviews.
And as far as things that can’t be planned – you could deal with weather, especially in areas where I live in Michigan where sometimes it’s hard to even get out of our own driveways. So if a doula lives closer to get to a birth or a postpartum shift, then sometimes we have relied on our team for cases of weather or if there’s an emergency surgery planned, knowing that you have support; you don’t have to go it alone or have a cancellation.
But also on podcasts for the doulas and other birth and baby workers who are listening to this podcast: I also want to encourage you to get to know other doulas in your area and establish a backup plan for yourself and your clients, but also to address burnout and self-care and how to manage those multiple-day induction, checking in on your family and making sure that you’re able to be there for your client but you’re not burning yourself out.
When I started Gold Coast, I was very intentional about addressing that burnout issue in our field. The average doula still only stays in the field two to three years, whether they’re birth or postpartum, and part of that is the nature of our work. As a giving profession, and birth doulas being on call, and if they have children, navigating child care and increased costs for that, and certainly just feeling like they are not filling their own cup and not taking care of themselves. Sometimes, whether it’s a postpartum doula doing multiple overnights or a birth doula, there can be health issues that may arise from the intense work schedule.
And so I do work with my doulas on planning vacations, figuring out what is sustainable for them, and focusing on self-care and rest and making sure that they’re not burning out too early because it’s hard to replace doulas and find amazing doulas. I have been fortunate; I currently have a couple of doulas on my team who have been with me eight of the ten years, so allowing health leaves and bringing them back, or extended maternity leaves, or a break and having a month off, for example, and not taking birth clients, or taking a couple days a week off of postpartum support if they’re feeling stretched. So it’s important for those of us in the industry to know our limits. It’s hard to say no to clients, but we also need to prioritize our own health, or own families, especially if you’re a sola doula and establishing that backup network, you’ll be able to refer other birth or postpartum doulas to doulas who would take good care of them and be a trusted resource.
So as far as other tips that I wanted to address, dealing with burnout or backups: I think networking and meeting people in person, and I tell my clients that connection is vital. Attending prenatal yoga classes or meditation or taking a childbirth class in person with other families who are going through the same thing at the same time – I feel it’s important to connect with others in the profession. And one of our area hospitals has quarterly doula meetings, so I love getting to know other doulas. We have a maternal health conference in Michigan, and I sent multiple team members to the conference and have attended it myself in years past as a way to keep up with what’s going on in our field and focus on continued education but also meeting people and connecting and getting other resources and referrals is so important.
So I love having my own team connect. We have annual team photos, a holiday party every year, because we live all over a really two-hour radius in Michigan, and so it’s hard to connect, but I feel like even though we have technology at our fingertips and can talk on the phone or text, and we use an app to communicate with our team, again if we need backup or have a question about how an overnight shift went with a client with a doula who worked the night prior, for example – those can be helpful, but there’s nothing like in-person connection, not only for our clients with other families who are going through the same stage of life, but with those of us in the industry. And connecting with related practitioners like pelvic floor physical therapists and mental health therapists and certainly understanding all of the options for pediatricians and OBs and midwives, as our clients are asking us for resources. That is one of the roles of not only a birth doula but a postpartum doula, to understand the support options in all of the communities that we serve.
So those are my tips for now. Feel free to connect to us on social media at Gold Coast Doulas. Our website is www.goldcoastdoulas.com. I have some tips on finding your doula and connecting with other resources in your community, like car seat safety technicians and lactation consultants, in my book, Supported: Your Guide to Birth and Baby that I co-authored with Alyssa Veneklase.
So feel free to check that out at www.supportedbook.com, and I will talk to you soon!
IMPORTANT LINKS