A postpartum doula can be a key source of comfort and education in the early days of your postpartum journey. Some of the tasks that a postpartum doula can assist with include newborn care (feeding, bathing, diaper changes, putting to sleep, soothing), light housekeeping, assistance with meal preparation, emotional support, and more.

Whether you choose to breastfeed or bottle feed at night, your nighttime doula can bring your baby or pump to you and take care of everything else (including diaper changes, cleaning/sterilizing bottles and pump parts, and soothing baby back to sleep). This can give you an opportunity to still receive a significant amount of rest at night, which we believe is critical to your mental health and wellbeing.

If your postpartum doula cannot attend your scheduled shift due to illness or any other unforeseen circumstances, we will try our best to fill the shift with another doula on our team to ensure that you still receive support. You are more than welcome to reschedule your shift if you would prefer to stick with your original doula. 

Any changes to your scheduled doula support will be subject to your doula’s availability, and will depend on the amount of notice given. We will try our best to accommodate changes to the extent possible, however if we are unable to support you, we will refer you to others who can.

It’s never too early to start planning for your postpartum journey (…okay perhaps before getting pregnant is too early ☺)! We recommend booking at least a few months before your due date, as doulas can be quite popular, and their schedules do fill up! However, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t reach out if you have already had your baby and require more urgent support – we will try our best to support you, or find someone else who can.

We understand that lactation support is very different from doula support, and is much more time sensitive and unpredictable. As such, you do not need to book your lactation support services in advance, and can contact us as soon as you are facing any challenges and require support.

An IBCLC stands for International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. An IBCLC is the highest accreditation for a healthcare professional specialized in lactation. IBCLCs undergo intensive education, supervised clinical experience, and must pass a final exam to become Board Certified. They come a diverse range of professional backgrounds.

Our lactation consultants are all International Board Certified Lactation Consultants (or IBCLCs), which means that they all have hundreds (and in many cases thousands) of hours of lactation education as well as practical experience supporting families. In your visit, you can expect your lactation consultant to assist with challenges such as latching, milk supply, positioning, pain, scheduling, choosing nipples for bottle feeding, identifying baby’s signs of hunger and fullness, and more.

Even though our IBCLCs are experts in breastfeeding, they support each family based on their individual goals and circumstances. They provide non-judgmental guidance and can assist you with combo feeding, pumping, and setting up a schedule and feeding plan which ensures that both you and your baby are healthy.

The ideal time period for postpartum doula services is the first 3 months postpartum. If you require support beyond this, feel free to inquire and we would be happy to discuss further.

Although we wish the answer to this was a resounding yes for everyone, it is dependent entirely on your specific plan. We will provide any documentation you may need to support you in making claims, and we highly encourage you to inquire with your insurance provider to see if these services could be covered.

We completely understand that this can be a tough decision, especially if you have never had a doula before! We recommend having an in-depth discussion with your partner and/or other family members to determine how much support you will have during your postpartum period (especially the first 3 months). Be sure to discuss what that support will look like (Cooking? Cleaning? Help taking care of baby or an older child? What about nights?) Also consider any other circumstances that may be unique to your family. Once you have done this, determine your specific support needs and pick the number of hours that you feel comfortable with – and take a look at our sample schedules on our Packages page for some ideas! We can discuss this further in our initial consultation.

We want to support as many families as possible, so we will try our best to provide doula and lactation support services across the entire GTA. Whether we can serve your exact location will depend on whether we have a doula or LC on our team that is able to travel there. Please contact us or book an initial consultation to inquire further.

Yes! We truly believe that postpartum support is one of the best gifts you can provide to an expecting parent (they may not remember which registry gift you purchased, but they will remember that you made their decision easier to invest in postpartum care). Please feel free to email us at hello@anamav.ca for more information.

Hiring your postpartum doula or lactation consultant through an agency rather than independently has multiple benefits, including the following: (1) back up support in case your doula or LC has an emergency or is sick and unable to attend your scheduled visit, (2) reassurance that all team members have gone through a thorough screening process including background checks, proof of certifications, references, and so on, (3) the ability to raise any concerns you may have to the agency, (4) the ability to book multiple services at one time, and (5) being able to line up more support by having a team of doulas rather than one doula.

Our passion lies in postpartum care – we understand how challenging and complex this period of parenthood can be, and therefore we want to focus on providing (and adding) services that can support families during this critical time. Of course we understand and appreciate the vital role that a birth doula can play in your journey, so we are happy to make recommendations (including some of our own postpartum doulas)! 

We are working hard behind the scenes and are so excited to offer this service, as we understand how this can help reduce some of the overwhelm for new parents. We hope to introduce these services before the end of the year – be sure to subscribe to our mailing list to receive updates about this and everything else going on at Anamav!