All About Backup Doulas

My “Lucky Penny” keychain: A present from one of the clients whose births I attended as the back-up doula.

I’m excited to support every one of my birth clients as they labour and welcome their baby.

But hey, life happens. Even to doulas!

So having a good system for back up is key to your peace of mind—and to mine.

I assure my clients that, should I get the flu—or should someone go into labour at the same time you do—I have trusted colleagues I can call.

Yes, that’s colleagues—plural. As a doula that serving an hour radius of my home base, I have backups in multiple communities. This also means I have a larger network to draw on, in case—say—your backup also had the flu! (No, it hasn’t happened to me, but I do like to have a plan.) All these doulas are people I trust for both their skills and their manner, who I trust to be there for you, even if I cannot.

If I can’t be there for your birth, will that be disappointing?

For you? Probably not. You’ll feel safe and supported, and focused on your experience. And in the end, you’ll probably be unable to imagine your birth with any doula other than the one who was there to support you on the day.

For me? Absolutely!

Here’s a story. In 2024, I was a backup doula for my friend and colleague Nagham of Green Peach Doula Studio. For family reasons, Nagham had to be away for two days within an on-call period. Great doula that she is, Nagham made sure her clients had my info, and we’d even had the opportunity to meet, briefly, by Zoom. Sure enough, just as Nagham was headed out of town, some of these clients went into labour. They knew what to do, and so did I. I joined them first at home, and then went with them to their midwife-attended hospital birth, where everyone felt safe and satisfied.

Only my doula colleague felt she’d “missed out.”

In the end, the clients, Nagham and I all knew things happened as they should, and our shared clients reported that they’d felt they had the benefit of two doulas—one for prenatal and postpartum support, and another for their birth. Both we doulas received little thank you tokens from them. Part of mine is shown in the picture above: a keychain in the shape of a tattooed baby, that I call my “Lucky Penny” after their (definitely not tattooed!) baby.

Experiences like this confirm how well a backup doula system can work for clients. Glad to have Green Peach Doula—and other wonderful doulas—as people my clients can also count on.