A Shoulder for New Mothers to Lean On

There was a note of panic in my sister-in-law’s voice on the phone. My brother was about to head out of town for a week, leaving her with their 3-year-old and newborn son. Could she fly down with the babies from San Jose and spend a few days with us, she asked.

The trade-off might seem odd to some, balancing the rigors of holiday travel--a new mother, lugging a balky toddler, a cranky newborn, two car seats and several duffel bags crammed with baby gear--against the prospect of staying home, with two kids, alone.

“It’s mighty expensive child-care,” my brother grumbled, comparing the price of airline tickets to what it would cost to hire a neighborhood teenager to help out a couple of hours each day.

But over the phone I could hear the baby crying in the background, and the 3-year-old wailing that Mommy was taking too long to fix his toy airplane’s broken wing. And I imagined their mother, Jennifer--bleary-eyed, still in her nightgown--rooting through the refrigerator for something to eat ... something she could prepare in five minutes, with one hand, while she soothed a hungry toddler and rocked his baby brother to sleep.

And I knew that it wasn’t child care Jennifer needed, but a little old-fashioned mothering.

It’s been 11 years since my last child was born, but I still recall the isolation of those first overwhelming weeks--the mind-numbing exhaustion you feel after days of relentless demands and endless nights of little sleep. And I remember that what I wanted most was not someone to do the dishes or diaper the baby, but someone to prop up my flagging spirits with a little TLC.

“It used to be that you’d have a baby and your mother would come to help, your sisters would pitch in, your neighbors would bring you over something to eat,” says Petra Corsaro, who works as a doula, helping women cope with the strains of motherhood.

“Today, everyone’s so busy and families are so spread out, the mother often has very little support, [and] she’s expected to do everything,” Corsaro says. The doula is there to make sure the new mother doesn’t collapse beneath the weight of everyone’s needs.

The title doula comes from the Greek word for the female servant in the ancient Greek household who helped the lady of the house through childbirth and her children’s infancy. Today’s doulas not only give new moms a break from baby care, but whip up pancakes for breakfast, fold baby’s laundry, tend to an older sibling’s needs.

The concept has long been associated with earth-mother types and the natural-birth movement. But studies show the use of doulas is growing among women across the board.

Doulas of North America, which trains and certifies the caregivers, has grown from 750 members in 1995 to more than 3,300 doulas today. And many hospitals have begun offering doula care to new mothers after they return home from the hospital.

“It’s going to be the new Lamaze,” says Corsaro, who coordinates the Tender Care doula program at Encino Tarzana Regional Medical Center. “The idea is spreading through word of mouth. Just like everyone began to take Lamaze [childbirth] classes, every mother’s going to want a doula.”

Annette Kistler had no idea what a doula was when Corsaro offered her services in September, when Kistler gave birth to her second child. Since then, the Simi Valley mother has had three doulas--one when her son was a few days old, another when he was 3 weeks old and developed colic, then another early this month when holiday demands threatened to overwhelm her. The hospital provided the first three-day stint for free; she hired the others at $23 an hour. It was expensive, she said, but worth it.

Her doulas helped give the baby his first bath, folded laundry, made breakfast, even helped wrap her Christmas presents.

But it’s more than baby care or housekeeping doulas provide. Their presence is an antidote for the isolation many new mothers experience. “You feel like you should be able to take care of this baby by yourself,” Kistler said. “But it’s really nice to have somebody there ... somebody who’s not going to judge you, but just support you and help you with things that might seem intimidating.”

Kistler said her doulas let her spend a lot of time “just unloading about how hard it was, about all the things that were bothering me.”

Doulas say a sympathetic ear is one of the most important things they provide.

“A lot of the new mothers today are so afraid of doing anything wrong,” says doula Annie Topdjian, whose three children are 22, 18 and 8. “Sometimes they just need to talk to somebody who understands their feelings.”

All the Tender Care doulas are mothers. They work part-time, in four-hour shifts a few days a week.

And the most common request from new mothers is also the simplest service to provide. “They want to take a shower,” doula Karla Markarian says, with a laugh, remembering when her children--now 10, 5, and 3--where babies “and I would have sold my soul for a shower.”

“They can’t believe they can actually take the time to wash their hair without worrying about whether the baby is crying. We tell them, ‘Go ahead, we’ll watch the baby.’ Some of them are so happy, they actually cry.”

For four days this month, my daughters and I played doula to their Aunt Jennifer. The girls played with their 3-year-old cousin, rode scooters and went on walks, took him to a soccer game.

I tended to his little brother, leaving their mother with time on her hands for the first time since he was born.

As I bounced him, walked him, rocked him and sang to him, I could hear the shower running upstairs. Later, when I carried him up to bed, I found his mother fast asleep, curled up on my bed, her face as peaceful as her child’s.

Sandy Banks’ column is published on Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.