Postpartum Doula, who is she?

'As a society, we fail to recognise that with every newborn baby comes a newborn mother,

and she is just as tender and sensitive as the new baby.'

Sophie Messager

Many woman think that hiring a postpartum doula is a luxury and they would rather spend their money on something useful. But I would like to pause for a minute and ask, what could be more useful than having someone especially dedicated to taking care of a mother - baby diad? Listening to birth stories, emotional support through those first, most vulnerable days, preparing nourishing food, supporting breastfeeding, helping with housework, offering massage, are among the tasks that I cover in my doula work.
I am a mother of 3. I had my first two children in a hospital and my third one at home. The difference between experiencing hospital birth and completely unprepared and lonely postpartum as opposed to gentle, full of awareness lotus home birth, followed by traditional postpartum time of rest and celebration, have been incredible and very eye opening. I am very grateful for having an opportunity to experience both, quite extreme ends of a birth spectrum. Drawing from it made me deeply appreciate the importance of postpartum care, which is a fundament of both, maternal and child health as well as health of the entire human community. 
Traditional postpartum practices may seem like a thing from the past but actually there is a deep wisdom in them, a wisdom of uncounted number of women who gave birth before us and those who cared for them.