What Do Doulas Do When They Are Not at a Birth?

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This question makes me giggle a bit since I get it all the time and it shows really that people know what we do when we are hip squeezing or hand holding in the birthing space, but the rest of the time… what does that look like? 

The question is really asking, what does a doula career look like?

This is one of those questions that sounds simple and opens up into something really interesting about what doula work actually looks like as a career.

Because here is the thing. Most doulas are not at births most of the time. A full client roster for a birth doula is typically four to five clients per month. Each birth might last anywhere from a few hours to 18 hours. That leaves a lot of hours in the week that have nothing to do with being in a birth room.

So what are doulas actually doing with that time?

A lot. 

And understanding this is important whether you are thinking about becoming a doula and wondering what the day to day looks like, or whether you are a doula who is struggling to figure out why your schedule feels chaotic even when births are not happening.

We wanted to break it down for you so that you can see how many hours of work your doula business is per week and month. 

Prenatal appointments and client relationship building

Most of the emotional and educational work of birth doula support happens before the birth ever starts.

Prenatal appointments are where you get to know your clients. These sessions are such a great time to bond and connect and start building that trust. This is where you learn what they are afraid of, what they hope for, what their relationship dynamics look like, what their provider has been saying that is worrying them, and what comfort measures they want to try. 

Again, these appointments are where trust and intimacy is built and this is what allows you to actually support someone effectively when labor starts.

A typical birth doula package includes two or three prenatal visits per client. If you have four clients in a month each at different stages of pregnancy, you are doing a significant number of prenatal appointments alongside any births that happen. 

Each prenatal visit is about 2 to 3 hours long. With a full client roster you will have 1 or 2 per week accounting for approximately 4-6 hours of prenatal care per week. 

You will also be answering texts and calls and emails from clients which is about 1-3 hours per week. 

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Postpartum check ins and follow up

Most doulas include at least one postpartum follow up visit or call in their packages, and many do more than that.

The postpartum check in is where you find out how the birth landed emotionally, how feeding is going, whether there are signs of postpartum mood concerns, and whether the family has the support they need in those early weeks. 

ProTip: It is also where referrals happen. A doula who notices something that needs clinical attention and knows who to call is doing some of the most important work of their practice.

These are about 90 mins to 3 hours long and you will have 4-5 per month so that is about 6 – 15 hours per month. 

Running their doula business

This is the part of doula work that most training programs skip and most new doulas are not prepared for.

Responding to inquiry emails. 

Following up with potential clients who reached out but have not booked. 

Sending contracts. 

Invoicing. 

Tracking payments. 

Updating their website. 

Writing social media content. 

Showing up in community spaces where pregnant people gather. 

Building and maintaining referral relationships with midwives, OBs, lactation consultants, and other perinatal professionals.

This is absolutely the work that determines whether a doula has a sustainable career or a handful of clients and a lot of confusion about why the phone has stopped ringing.

The doulas who thrive long term are the ones who treat their business like a business even when they would rather just focus on supporting families. If your training did not cover this side of things, it is worth filling that gap. We talk about what actually goes into building a doula business here.

You would need to spend about 2 – 3 hours per day on your business and finding more clients. This would be about 10 – 15 hours per week. 

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Continuing education and staying current

Obviously, birth guidelines change and research gets updated. New studies come out that shift what we understand about interventions, comfort measures, postpartum recovery, and infant care. A doula who learned everything they know in a weekend training three years ago and has not touched their education since is not serving their clients as well as they could be.

Good doulas read. They attend webinars and workshops. They follow researchers and advocates in the birth world. They stay current on what is happening in maternal health policy and practice because that context shapes what their clients are experiencing in the birth room.

This is part of why bebo mia’s certification does not expire and does not cost you ongoing fees. We believe your training organization should be supporting your continuing education as part of what you already paid for, not charging you every year to maintain access to your own credential.

Yup, you read that right… we handle all your continuing education for free!

Community and peer support

Doula work is emotionally demanding and doing it alone is one of the fastest routes to burnout. The doulas who sustain this work for years and decades are almost always the ones who have community around them.

Community looks like: 

• Regular check ins with doula colleagues
• Peer mentorship relationships
• Group spaces where birth workers can process difficult experiences, share resources, and remind each other why this work matters
• It also looks like the kind of informal support that happens when you can text a colleague after a hard birth and know someone who gets it will text back.

At bebo mia this is built into the program through the peer social group, the birth worker mental health support group, and a community that does not disappear when you graduate. We built the community we all needed because for too long doulas were doing this work in isolation and paying for it with their wellbeing.

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Teaching and education

A lot of doulas expand into childbirth education alongside their birth doula practice and this is one of the smartest business moves available to them. Childbirth education classes are scheduled, predictable, and they fill your client roster in a way that feels almost like cheating.

As we have written about here, between 30% to 50% of childbirth education students go on to hire their instructor as their birth doula. Your class pays you once for the teaching and again when those students become your birth clients. Read all about it here!

Some doulas also teach workshops for birth partners, run postpartum support groups, facilitate fertility support groups, or create digital educational content that generates income outside of one to one client work.

Rest and recovery

This one is the top of the sustainability list… like way, way at the top… because y’all, rest is resistance! 

Births are physically and emotionally intense. 

The nervous system work of holding space for someone through labor and delivery is real and it has a cost. Doulas who do not prioritize rest and recovery between births run out of capacity faster than they expect to.

Rest is not wasted time. It is part of the job. 

A doula who comes to a birth depleted is not able to offer the same quality of presence as one who came in well rested and resourced. Building recovery time into your schedule is not a luxury. It is how you stay in this work for the long haul.

You would expect 6 hours minimum recovery after each birth to nap and shower and eat and have quiet time. So a full time doula would need to ensure 24-30 hours per month of rest time. This may overlap with night sleep FYI. 

We have written about what a good post-birth recovery routine actually looks like here. 

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The honest picture of doula life

Doula work is not a job you do for a few hours a month and then clock out. It is a full practice with administrative, relational, educational, and personal dimensions that all require attention.

The doulas who are happiest in this work are the ones who have a clear picture of all of it before they start and who build systems to manage the parts that are not their natural strengths. This closes that expectation and reality gap for folks so they are not disappointed. 

A sustainable doula business comes from good training, good community, and the willingness to treat this like the real career it is.

If you are exploring what becoming a doula actually looks like, our full spectrum doula training runs every March and September and it covers all of this including the business side that most programs skip. Check it out here. 

Already certified somewhere else and feeling like the full picture was missing from your training? The cert transfer program is here.

And if you want to talk through what doula life actually looks like day to day, book a free doula career strategy session with us! We genuinely love this conversation.

Xoxox

Bianca, Founder of bebo mia inc.