Doula delivers: Birth attendants linked to positive pregnancies

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-04-22 01:00

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Having a doula - an emotional and physical non-medical support person during pregnancy, labour, birth and early parenting - has been linked to improved mental health of mums, as well as better starts to breastfeeding and better outcomes at their postpartum follow-up. The team looked into 22 previous studies on doula care, and say the support is best linked with improvements in the anxiety levels of the mums, breastfeeding initiation and their health at their six-week check-up, but the evidence for outcomes relating to caesarean delivery and pain management was more variable. The researchers did note that more research will be needed to fully confirm these results, as the current pool was very varied in their study design, as well as underrepresenting marginalised populations.

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Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Pittsburgh and UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, USA

Funder: This work was partially funded grant R01NR021484 from the National Institutes of Health (Dr Ragavan).

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