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Every year I get a few emails from people who have used a doula who ask me, “What’s a good gift to give my doula?” I usually love to read the snippets of the stories that they share about their time with the doula and why they want to give a gift. Here’s what I tell them:
Doulas do not anticipate nor expect that they will be given gifts. They were honored to. Be invited to participate in such a special time in your life. The best thing you could do would be to write them a letter and tell them what you’ve just told me in your email.
Let’s be honest, they usually want to do something tangible as well. So they usually write back and agree to send a card, but what else, they implore? Here are the lists and recommendations from other doulas:
- Be sure you’ve written a review of their services wherever they collect those, like DoulaMatch.net, their Facebook page, Yelp, etc. If you aren’t sure – ask them.
- Consider giving a donation to their favorite charity. If that’s not possible consider places like March for Moms or Black Mamas Matter.
- Get a gift card to a favorite eatery or coffee house. This is something that is super practical and thoughtful. I’ve been to many a birth and realize as I’m dragging home, that I have a gift card for coffee I can use, it always makes me smile and helps me feel like the birth world has come full circle with one family buying me coffee as I help another family.
- Ask if your doula has a scholarship fund. You could make a donation to that fund in order to help your doula pay services forward to other families.
- There are also all sorts of massage tools, lotions, Rebozos, etc. These tend to be things that are very personal so you need to know what their preferences are if you’re not sure you can take a chance or do a gift card. You would also want to think about if the gift was for the doula to use in their practice or personally.
- Perhaps you’d like to help them with their resource library, in that case, you can ask if there are books that they’d be interested in or give gift certificates to various book stores. If you wanted to do a physical book, two classics to consider are:
These gifts also work for the holidays or birthdays as well. What else would you think would be a good gift for a doula?