Our Work
Our doula-client relationship encompasses a wide variety of services that vary by client. Accompany doulas are prepared to offer prenatal and postpartum visits, either in-person or virtually, as well as continuous labor and delivery support. The range of these services as well as the number of doula-client interactions is determined during the contract negotiation between Accompany Doula Care and your organization.
We provide culturally sensitive and congruent support to mothers from many different cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, whenever possible. Our multi-cultural and multi-lingual doula team speaks English, Spanish, Cape Verdean Creole, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Albanian, Urdu, Bengali, Hindi, French, and Mandarin. The languages offered change as our team changes. In our doula-client matching system, we value language concordance between clients and their doula.
Hours Accompany Doulas Spent in Care
Our Services
Prenatal home visits
(between 2-4 on average)
Visits between the doula and client prenatally are the backbone of our services and meant to help develop a strong relationship, trust, and facilitate discussions on various educational topics, including:
Healthy pregnancy behaviors
Desires for the birth experience
Discussing fears, expectations and birth options
Caring for a newborn, including infant feeding and safe sleep
Continuous labor, delivery, and immediate postpartum support
The client and their doula are in contact as labor approaches or when there are signs of early labor. Doulas are available to support clients in early or active labor. The doula is present with the birthing parent throughout labor to provide emotional support, suggest comfort measures, and provide suggestions for partner involvement, when applicable. The doula helps the patient ask questions about their care and self-advocate for their needs and desires throughout labor and delivery. The doula stays with the birthing person in the immediate postpartum period and can help with the initiation of infant feeding.
Postpartum home visits
(between 2-4 on average)
During postpartum visits, the doula supports the birthing person’s transition to parenthood and taking care of a newborn; observes the birthing parent’s physical and mental health in the case that needs should be escalated; provides education about caring for their postpartum body; supports infant feeding; and reinforces the importance of the postpartum and well-baby visits with their provider.
Frequently Asked Questions
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We are often asked if we take private or self-pay doula clients, outside of our contracts with healthcare payers, hospitals, and clinics. Unfortunately, we cannot accommodate those requests at this time. Massbirth.com is one resource to search for doulas who provide services in MA. There are several doula pages on social media or doulas who work in groups, such as the Boston Doula Circle, LLC. MassHealth will also begin promoting doulas who can be reimbursed by their plans.
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Please visit our Partners page, scroll down to the bottom, and submit a message. You are also welcome to write an introduction via email to info@accompanydoulacare.com
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All of our doulas are HIPAA trained and certified yearly. Each year, we renew our HIPAA Seal of Compliance with Compliancy Group.
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Accompany pivoted to a hybrid model of in-person and/or virtual care at the onset of COVID-19 in 2020 and continues to remain vigilant of CDC-recommended precautions. Whether a visit takes place virtually or in-person is agreed upon by the doula and their client. Doulas are required to receive a minimum number of vaccinations to be employed by Accompany Doula Care.
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Accompany makes every attempt to honor the clients’ preferences for a doula, including race, ethnicity, culture, primary language, and community the client lives in.
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The average number of visits is two to four in both the prenatal and postpartum periods. The maximum number of visits allowable is a contract negotiation between Accompany and the organization who is the source of the referral.
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The cost of a full range of doula services with our current contracts is proprietary information, and each new contract is negotiated initially and annually thereafter.
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Accompany does not provide trainings for aspiring birth workers to become doulas. There are several doula training organizations across the country. Accompany does not restrict to a list of training programs when hiring. We provide extensive mentoring and supervision to ensure quality services.
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Doulas come to work for Accompany having already completed their doula training from a variety of sources, though most have been trained through DONA International. Accompany is committed to providing continuing education to our doulas on a range of topics at our monthly meetings, as well as mentoring and supervision to ensure quality services.
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Please reach out to info@accompanydoulacare.com and we will try to answer your questions as much as possible.
If the doula feels that the mother’s health is at risk physically or mentally, they can alert the healthcare or care management team. Doulas one among many ways that work together to eliminate healthcare disparities.