Rest, Recovery, Healing, and Bonding: Postpartum doula helps new mothers

Rest, Recovery, Healing, and Bonding

Doula Ashley Lopes offers practical and emotional support to new mothers 

By Karen Walker

As any new mother can attest, life with a newborn baby can be overwhelming. Learning how to breastfeed,
getting enough sleep, caring for other children in the home, even finding time to eat and shower, all while physically recovering from delivery and dealing with changing hormones and the resulting swirl of emotions—it’s challenging, to say the least.

Using a postpartum doula like Ashley Lopes of Ashley Lopes Postpartum Supportive Services can help ease some of the stress that comes with the arrival of a new baby.

If you are not familiar with what a doula is, you are not alone. Even Lopes says, “I never heard of a doula until I started having my own kids.”

Now, she defines a doula as “a supportive person in your life to help you navigate whatever period you’re going through,” and lists several types of doulas: birth doulas, who assist a woman during labor and delivery; postpartum doulas, who help women and families after a baby is born; and bereavement doulas, who work with women
who experience infancy or pregnancy loss.

Lopes is a certified postpartum doula, which means she can provide support after the birth of a child. She will work with a mother any time during the baby’s first year of life, and the support she provides can range from helping with breastfeeding to acting as a “mother’s helper” of sorts to providing practical information and just being a nonjudgmental listening ear.

Lopes believes there is a real place for doulas in modern American life for several reasons.

“We live in a culture where we move away from our families and we move away from people we know, so we often don’t have a ‘village’ of support,” she says. “We also live in a culture where it is a badge of honor to take on everything by ourselves.”

Sometimes that makes it difficult to ask for help from even our closest friends and family members, even when we desperately need it, says Lopes, who is the mother of three (ages 6, 4, and 1).

“In my own experience, I felt like I had to keep up this façade that everything was fine, I was okay, I can do this, because I felt like I needed to for the people in my circle,” she explains. “But when you have someone who is not in your circle, who doesn’t know you day in and day out, sometimes it is easier to be more vulnerable. I think that’s where that kind of support is really helpful.” Lopes has worked as a social worker since 2008. Her current position provides enough flexibility for her to offer her doula services on the side. 

She started to pursue becoming a breastfeeding specialist in 2015, becoming certified in 2017. She then completed any hours of college-level coursework through MaternityWise Institute to earn her doula certification in 2021.

Lopes, who lives in Howard,opened her doula practice at the beginning of March of this year. Now, she is eager to put her training to work, helping women in both Centre and Clinton counties.

She offers a wide range of services, but they all boil down to four things: “Rest, recovery, healing, and bonding with your baby. That’s what I want to make the primary focus of my services,” she says.

Much of Lopes’ service centers on education and planning. While she is happy to begin a client relationship at any time during pregnancy and the year following childbirth, she says the ideal time to start working with a doula would be during the 30th week of pregnancy. She offers a postpartum planning package that would work perfectly with that timing, she says.

“Planning is what sets you up for success. So we talk about basic things like, how are you going to get your rest? How are you going to get your self-care? How are you planning to manage the day-to-day activities in your home? How are you going to nourish yourself? Just planting that seed and getting women thinking about those things,” she says. “When we plan for these things and we’re prepared, it helps lessen the mental health issues that maycome about.”

Addressing those potential postpartum mental health issues is a high priority for Lopes.

“I think it’s so important for people to understand those things, and I don’t know that they’re talked about enough,” she says.

She wants new mothers to recognize the difference between baby blues—a feeling of melancholy or sadness caused by fluctuating hormones that should subside by two weeks after birth—and postpartum depression, which generally lasts beyond two weeks, affects daily life, and makes it difficult for a mother to feel a connection to her baby. Lopes also brings up the possibility of postpartum psychosis, a more serious, but much rarer, disorder.

“It’s important for women to be aware that those things can happen. It’s normal to feel those things, so it’s about having a plan in place for when you do,” she says.

Lopes can offer the benefit of her own firsthand experience with postpartum depression, which she experienced after the birth of her third child. She says she was reluctant to admit her feelings to her husband or her mother because she didn’t want to worry them.

“Sharing my truth, accepting that this is where I am and that it’s okay to get treatment,   it was humbling and very difficult,” she says. “I want women to realize that there are options out there; you don’t have to suffer in silence.”

Lopes also can relate to women having issues with breastfeeding.

“Back when I had my first daughter, I realized breastfeeding was not as intuitive as I thought it would be,” she says.

As a breastfeeding specialist, Lopes is qualified to help with common issues, such as difficulty with latching, which can impact milk supply and cause pain for a nursing mother—a frequent reason new mothers give up on breastfeeding.

Lopes says she can also provide education about what to look for to ensure that the baby is getting enough milk and thriving, and can refer women to an Internationally Board Certified Lactation Consultant if they need more specialized attention.

Along with education, Lopes also offers the kind of practical help that new parents really need. She can be an extra set of hands during an overwhelming time—running errands, doing light housekeeping, keeping older siblings occupied, answering questions about infant care, or watching the baby so a mom can take a shower or a nap. 

With one of her packages, she offers a special meal that she prepares, delivers, and serves to the new mom and dad while she provides childcare. She even offers overnight stays, and says her services can be particularly useful when trying to get multiples like twins on compatible feeding and sleeping schedules.

Beyond this kind of personalized assistance, Lopes hopes to create a community of new or expectant mothers who can meet and learn together. InApril, she facilitated a virtual support group for women who had experienced traumatic births. She says just giving women an outlet to talk about their own experiences can help them heal.

“It’s incredibly cathartic to retell your birth story. It’s been shown to really help with maternal health outcomes to be able to process that, just by having someone listen—especially if we’re talking about traumatic birth experiences. It’s really important to be able to share that, to validate how you feel,” she says.

Whether it’s one-on-one or in a group setting, Lopes says she strives to be a listening ear and a cheerleader who can bring a new mother peace of mind.

Ultimately, for Lopes, it’s all about the greater good.

“I’m passionate about helping people after the baby comes home, because I know what that’s like—how stressful and overwhelming it can be,” she says. “And my passion has always been helping families. Happy mothers and happy families mean a happy community. That’s the goal of any kind of social service, to benefit the community at large.”

Lopes provides her doula services by the hour or in packages, and offers a sliding fee scale, saying her goal is to make her services affordable for anyone. All client relationships begin with a free consultation, which can be arranged through her website, www.ashleylopesdoula.com or via email: [email protected]. T&G

Karen Walker is a freelance writer in State College.