Women serving women in a growing health care field

Northeast Doulas L.L.C., a women-owned business in a growing and as yet unregulated field within the health care industry, occupies a small front room in a medical office suite in Putnam Valley near the Westchester-Putnam county border. A whiteboard behind a small display case lists products for the modern new mother: breast pumps, maternity support belts, breast milk storage bags, nipple shields, protective breast shells, sleep bras and exercise balls.

The business offers a convenient retail service for patients visiting this OB-GYN office of The Westchester Medical Practice in Putnam Valley”™s Waterside Professional Park. For the company”™s owners, the shared office space represents the working bond between doulas, in their role as labor-room personal attendants and emotional and educational support workers for birthing mothers, and medical professionals, some of whom have viewed the doula as an intrusive, unwanted and unprofessional presence at deliveries.

Unlike professionally licensed and medically trained midwives, doulas ”“ a name said to have been coined in the 1960s and derived from an ancient Greek word for a female servant or slave ”“ have no medical role in childbirth. And unlike most medical professionals, their service can extend to postpartum women at home, including live-in support in a mother”™s early weeks of nursing and caring for a baby.

From left, Northeast Doulas co-owners Debbie Aglietti, Lauren Schwarzfeld and Randy Patterson.

Northeast Doulas employs 11 women, independent contractors who work exclusively for the company. Their typically affluent clientele include residents of New York City, Westchester, the lower Hudson Valley and Fairfield County, Conn.

“Most of them work full-time, and can easily work 90 hours in a week,” said Randy Patterson, a co-owner of Northeast Doulas with partners Debbie Aglietti and Lauren Schwarzfeld.

Formerly a hair salon owner in Putnam Valley and a perinatal technician at Hudson Valley Hospital Center in Cortlandt Manor, Patterson has been a doula for 17 years. Having seen doulas come into the hospital where she worked, “I just sort of hung a doula shingle on my door,” she said.

Though some employers do allow payment for doula services from employees”™ flexible spending accounts, no health care insurers provide coverage for their services.

“We”™re not there yet,” said Patterson.

For labor doulas, “The going rates in this area are between $1,000 and $2,000,” she said. Postpartum doulas are paid $40 to $45 an hour. A typical hiring arrangement has them working 60 hours with the new mother over three weeks.

Northeast Doulas also provides live-in care for the first six weeks after childbirth. For a five-day live-in package, a client returning home from the hospital pays $3,600.

For live-in arrangements, “We need women who are a little bit older” and have the flexibility and freedom from rearing young children of their own, Patterson said.

A long-time entrepreneur, “I love the business side as much as the birth side,” she said. “I love empowering a woman on the birth side.”

Patterson six years ago gave up her solo enterprise to partner with Debbie Aglietti. A Mahopac resident who had worked in corporate health and wellness programs, Aglietti said she learned of a doula”™s work after meeting a hospital technician who was preparing to become one. “I instantly came home and told my husband I found what I wanted to do in life.”

In 2002 Aglietti registered Northeast Doulas as a limited liability company. “I felt if I had a business behind my name, people would take me more seriously, because I didn”™t have a medical background,” she said.

Schwarzfeld, a Mount Kisco resident who had worked in finance at hedge fund and private equity venture capital firms in Westchester, began working for Aglietti and Patterson about five years ago at Northeast Doulas. After taking on office duties as well, she bought an ownership stake in the company. The partners still attend births as doulas and have separate back-office roles in their business.

The trio in 2013 launched ProDoula Certification L.L.C., an independent agency that provides doula training, accreditation and business development advice and guidance to women seeking to become doulas at a professional level. The doula industry is not regulated at the state or federal level, leaving private companies like ProDoula and the Chicago-based nonprofit trade organization DONA International to set professional training and educational standards and grant certification on their own.

“Now more than ever, we”™re seeing this demand for doulas,” Patterson said. “As this demand for doulas grows, there”™s more desire by women to become doulas. We developed ProDoula because we see this demand for professional doulas growing.”

Patterson said their company recently was contacted by Greenwich Hospital for help in developing guidelines for hospital officials when deciding who should be allowed into labor rooms as doulas.

“There are a lot of stereotypes about doulas,” Patterson said. “People think being a doula is a philosophy” about natural childbirth and breastfeeding, “but we think of it as a profession.”

“Doulas are not activists,” she said. “However, many activists are becoming doulas as a soapbox, as their arena”¦ Doulas should be able to check their own philosophies at the door” and offer unbiased information and options to the clients they serve. “We”™re almost like the childbirth educator coming to the birth with the person.”

With access to online search tools and health care websites, “Now our clients are so well-informed that if the doula cannot provide the most up-to-date information, the client knows more than the doula,” Patterson said. “The amount of information that our clients have access to requires doulas to have higher standards.”

“The work of doulas often comes instinctively to women,” Schwarzfeld said. “The business side often scares people the most.” Armed with practical instruction in starting and running a business and with the certification that ProDoula offers, women see an opportunity to open their own agency, she said. “We really believe the agency is the future of doula business ”“ and without it, doulas burn out.”

Patterson said their certification program “offers women an opportunity to earn a living at something they can feel really passionate about.”

And the rising demand for doula training offers the partners an opportunity to grow their new business.

“We have big goals for ProDoula in serving every state in the U.S. and getting into Canada and really expanding the brand,” Patterson said.