Birth Doula Services
What is a Birth Doula?
A birth doula is a companion who supports a birthing person during labor and birth. Birth doulas are trained to provide continuous, one-on-one care, as well as information, physical support, and emotional support to birthing persons and their partners.
Having continuous, dedicated labor support from a birth doula is a highly effecting thing that you can do to improve your labor experience.
So many things about pregnancy and birth are unpredictable. You don’t know when you’ll go into labor, or how you’ll cope with the sensations. Everyone tells you different things. There’s so much information that it becomes really overwhelming for tons of people.
Birth doulas only attend about 6% of deliveries in the US, and we think that’s a shame. There is strong evidence that shows having a birth doula may decrease your need for pain medication, lower your risk for Cesarean, and increase your satisfaction. Support from a birth doula may also reduce the length of labor by up to 40 minutes, which is a really long time when contractions are two minutes apart!
What makes Boundless Birth stand out?
We’re a highly experienced birth doula team and we make sure that you are ready to have your baby.
Boundless Birth is a labor of love between Emily Christian-Michaels and Anna Sylvester, who have worked as partners in the Pittsburgh birth community since 2018. Aimee Bungard joined our little team in 2021, and Alyson Thiel found us in 2022. Together our team provides exemplary support to all families in Western Pennsylvania.
We are dedicated to helping you grow your family, and are happy to provide full-spectrum doula services as well as breastfeeding support, postpartum help, and childbirth education.
Every client has different needs, and lots of people realize once they’re in labor that they need something different than they thought. At Boundless Birth, we try to bring flexibility into your birth experience. That is, we try to teach our clients how to go with the flow.
Flexibility is what allows us to guide you down the winding path of childbirth (and truthfully, parenting). The knowledge that we bring with us from years of experience and training is what you can depend on to know that you’re being given all of your options.
Once you know what all of your options are, you can make a truly informed decision about your care.
We give you the option of working with either one OR two Boundless Birth doulas for the entirety of your time with us. While one doula is amazing, two doulas is so much better! Just like every family is unique, so is every doula. Working in pairs with families gives us the ability to complement each other’s skills. As partner doulas we can really dive into the things that you’re thinking and feeling prenatally. We bring double the knowledge with us, double the skills, and double the sparkling personality.
To support our clients and their families, we utilize massage, counter-pressure, positioning, movement, breathing techniques, affirmations, visualizations, education, and more. Each and every one of our clients has different needs, and we use our prenatal meetings to figure out what will work best for you.
Keep reading below for more information about our service packages. We look forward to meeting you soon!
Birth Doula Packages
All of our clients receive:
- Complimentary Zoom consultation (lasting about an hour) so that we can get to know each other, and you can see if we’d be a good fit for your team.
- TWO professionally trained, insured, and experienced birth doulas to support you throughout your pregnancy and labor, according to your package selection. Plus emergency backup doula support, just in case!
- Assistance writing your birth plan and communicating with your care provider, if needed.
- Unlimited phone, text, and email support throughout your pregnancy, plus 24/7 support leading up to your birth.
- In-person, hands on support for your labor and birth, at your home or in your desired birth location. We stay with you for as long as you need us.
- 1-2 hours of immediate postpartum support to help ease you into parenting.
- Breastfeeding, chestfeeding, or formula feeding support – however you decide to feed your baby is fine with us.
- Education: add-on private, in-home Childbirth and Breastfeeding Basics for only $350.
- Access to our client resources – like our list of local providers, chiropractors, and pediatricians, and our cheat sheets to help you progress labor naturally and manage things more easily postpartum.
- 5% discount on our Postpartum Doula services – read more about that here!
Level 1: Ruby
$2000
This package gives you everything that you need! We hold your hand through pregnancy, labor, birth, and beyond. Together, your doulas will provide:
- Two prenatal meetings to dive deep into your feelings, wants, needs, and birth or postpartum plans.
- In-person, hands on support for the entirety of your labor and delivery. When you work with a pair of us, we can practically guarantee you will labor with a doula you know and trust.
- One follow-up visit in your home to talk about the birth and make sure that you have everything that you need.
Level 2: Sapphire
$2300
In addition to two birth doulas and exemplary prenatal and birth support, this popular package provides growing families with a bunch of postpartum essentials! Together, your support team will provide:
- Two prenatal meetings to dive deep into your feelings, wants, needs, and birth or postpartum plans.
- In-person, hands on support for the entirety of your labor and delivery. When you work with a pair of us, we can practically guarantee you will labor with a doula you know and trust.
- One follow-up visit in your home to talk about the birth and make sure that you have everything that you need.
- “Newborn SOS!” – our popular Infant Care class that’s scheduled right after you come home from the hospital, ideally within the first week. It turns out that it’s way easier to learn how to take care of a baby when you’re actually learning with a baby! We talk about feeding, soothing, swaddling, bathing, and so much more. ($150 value)
- One 4-hour Postpartum Doula session. (daylight only, $140 value)
Level 3: Diamond
$3000
If you’re hungry for more knowledge about your pregnancy and birth, our Diamond package is the one for you! It just so happens that both of your birth doulas are Childbirth Educators. Together, your support team will provide:
- Two prenatal meetings to dive deep into your feelings, wants, needs, and birth or postpartum plans.
- In-person, hands on support for the entirety of your labor and delivery. When you work with a pair of us, we can practically guarantee you will labor with a doula you know and trust.
- One follow-up visit in your home to talk about the birth and make sure that you have everything that you need.
- Childbirth Basics – a private, in-home class to teach you the ins and outs of what your body is doing and how your baby will arrive. ($200 value)
- Breastfeeding Basics – a private, in-home class that teaches you what feeding a baby really looks like. ($150 value)
- “Newborn SOS!” – our popular Infant Care class that’s scheduled right after you come home from the hospital, ideally within the first week. It turns out that it’s way easier to learn how to take care of a baby when you’re actually learning with a baby! We talk about feeding, soothing, swaddling, bathing, and so much more. ($150 value)
- Two 4-hour or one 8-hour Postpartum Doula sessions. ($280 value)
- A full color, 8×10″ hand-painted digital portrait of your newborn baby, professionally printed and ready to be framed. ($100 value)
We know that doula care is expensive, and we believe strongly that every family who wants to work with a doula should be able to do so. If pricing is a concern for you, please let us know during your consultation so that we can discuss more budget-friendly options. We can always create a package that will work for you.
Meet the Doulas
Anna Sylvester
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Emily Christian-Michaels
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Aimee Bungard
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Alyson Thiel
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Rachel Parente
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Katharine Combemale
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Family Doula Fund
We believe strongly that every family that wants to work with a doula should have the ability to do so.
We maintain a certain number of open spaces in our due date calendar to offer our Birth Doula services to low-income families and members of marginalized groups on a sliding payment scale. If you fit either or both of these categories, please note that you would like to discuss payment options when you contact us to schedule your free consultation.
For families who have the means and the inclination to do so, we ask that you please consider making a monetary contribution to our Family Doula Fund. Your kind donation allows us to hold these open spaces for pregnant families in need.
