Postpartum Plan for Anticipated Loss
Birth Doulas & Medical Professionals will benefit from keeping this document on hand and distributing to families.
Co-created by Rachel Ebert, LCSW, PMH-C and Teresa Robertson, BFA, CD(DONA), this thoughtful and thorough postpartum plan covers a wide range of anticipated needs after experiencing perinatal loss.
Donations are encouraged. We respectfully ask when recommending this document, to direct individuals to this page. Thank you!
Articles
Evidence suggests that, in addition to regular nursing care, continuous one-to-one emotional support provided by support personnel, such as a doula, is associated with improved outcomes for women in labor. Benefits found in randomized trials include shortened labor, decreased need for analgesia, fewer operative deliveries, and fewer reports of dissatisfaction with the experience of labor (1, 17). As summarized in a Cochrane evidence review, a woman who received continuous support was less likely to have a cesarean delivery (RR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.67–0.91) or a newborn with a low 5-minute Apgar score (fixed-effect, RR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.50–0.95) (1). Continuous support for a laboring woman that is provided by a nonmedical person also has a modest positive effect on shortening the duration of labor (mean difference –0.58 hours; 95% CI, –0.85 to –0.31) and improving the rate of spontaneous vaginal birth (RR, 1.08; 95% CI, 1.04–1.12) (1).
The childbirth experience is an intensely dynamic, physical, and emotional event with lifelong implications. Women who receive continuous support during labor from hospital staff, nonhospital professionals such as doulas (Kozhimannil et al., 2013), and family or friends may have improved outcomes compared with women who do not have such support. Improved maternal and newborn outcomes include the following:
Increased spontaneous vaginal birth,
Shorter duration of labor,
Decreased cesarean birth,
Decreased instrumental vaginal birth,
Decreased use of any analgesia,
Decreased use of regional analgesia,
Improved five-minute Apgar score, and
Fewer negative feelings about childbirth experiences (Bohren et al., 2017).Impact of Doulas on Healthy Birth Outcomes: National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
Birth outcomes of two groups of socially disadvantaged mothers at risk for adverse birth outcomes, one receiving prebirth assistance from a certified doula and the other representing a sample of birthing mothers who elected to not work with a doula, were compared. All of the mothers were participants in a prenatal health and childbirth education program. Expectant mothers matched with a doula had better birth outcomes. Doula-assisted mothers were four times less likely to have a low birth weight (LBW) baby, two times less likely to experience a birth complication involving themselves or their baby, and significantly more likely to initiate breastfeeding. Communication with and encouragement from a doula throughout the pregnancy may have increased the mother’s self-efficacy regarding her ability to impact her own pregnancy outcomes.