The DoulaMatch.net Origin Story
DoulaMatch.net exists to make expectant and new parents’ life easier. We want parents to be able to quickly and easily find an available doula who best matches their needs for support, training, certification and cost.
Availability is always first and foremost. It's the reason we excel at what we do. If a doula isn't available for a family's due date, then nothing else matters (their fee, their glowing testimonials, training or certification). Let me tell you our origin story and why we think a doula's availability is the first most important criteria for a good match.
In 2000, when I first began this work as a childbirth educator and birth doula, I gave families taking my childbirth education classes referrals to specific doulas, our local doula association and DONA International so they could begin their doula search. Sadly, and too often, families trying to connect with a doula found: 1) the doulas were not available for their due date, 2) the doulas were no longer working as a doulas or 3) the doulas never returned the families' calls. As a childbirth educator who heavily promoted using a doula, I was crushed to hear these stories! The real tragedy, though, is that families stopped their doula search after not getting returned calls or repeatedly hearing doulas were unavailable. It just became too much of a hassle to keep searching, especially if the family was already on the fence about using a doula. This broke my heart because I knew how valuable a good doula would be to these families. I also knew we could do better in how we made referrals to parents.
Twenty-four years ago, I made a promise I'd never make a referral if I didn't know the doula's availability for the parent's due date. The problem is that I lived in Seattle, Washington, an area with a rapidly growing doula workforce and there was no way I could keep track of everyone. Initially, I made do with a Yahoo group and asked all doulas to update their availability to take clients every week. That simple solution that began with ~50 doulas grew into DoulaMatch.net. Since 2008, over 37,000 profiles have been created. Today, 6,000 doulas are currently active, of which 2,100 have updated their availability calendars this month. I'm so very proud of the folks that keep their availability up-to-date and refreshed! They are the doulas that make this database so incredibly useful for parents.
Besides being the first place parents go to begin their search for an available doula (30,000 - 40,000 unique visitors every month), hospital administrators, Medicaid and insurance referral coordinators use the DoulaMatch.net database to make doula referrals to their patients and clients using our Group Profile feature. We also make our database available to NIH, CDC, and academic researchers studying the US doula workforce.
As more states move forward with doula support benefits covered under their Medicaid insurance plans, we urge state referral coordinators to please consider building your doula databases with availability in mind. Families who use Medicaid insurance plans are often already over-burdened just trying to find health care providers who take patients who accept their Medicaid insurance plans, frequently with little to no choice in care providers when they do find an available provider. Please don't create 'lists' of doulas who are Medicaid eligible and then leave it up to over-burdened families to do all the leg work. These families deserve more than that. Give parents the tools they need to find good, quality, AVAILABLE doulas to prevent doula-search burnout.
Besides my personal experience, the recent survey by GoodRx also shows that lack of availability, convenience and cost are major barriers for families wanting doula support but not receiving it.
DoulaMatch.net will always exist to serve expectant and new parents. We're glad doulas find the database useful in their work and we are happy to promote the good work of quality doulas. Our prime directive will always be to serve parents.
All acknowledgement and gratitude must go to Pat James, our technical mastermind and my very special partner, without whom DoulaMatch.net would not exist.
Kim James, BDT(DONA), ICCE, LCCE, CLE, NA-C
Owner & Operator of DoulaMatch.net
Certified Doula Swedish Medical Centers
Adjunct Instructor Simkin Center for Allied Birth Vocations at Bastyr University
Birth & Parenting Educator Parent Trust for Washington Children