Caring for Multiples as a Postpartum Doula

This is an advanced skills class that earns you 1 Continuing Ed classroom hour credit. A postpartum doula caring for multiples must remember: • Every pregnancy, birth, and family is unique. • Multiples increase logistical complexity, but each baby remains an individual with their own needs and personality. • Parents of multiples often need permission to lower expectations, accept help, and prioritize rest alongside infant care. • Supporting breastfeeding, pumping, nutrition, and recovery requires flexibility and evidence-informed encouragement rather than rigid plans. • Families may be navigating prematurity, NICU experiences, or birth trauma while also celebrating new life, and both realities deserve acknowledgment. • The doula's greatest gift is often helping transform overwhelm into confidence through calm presence, practical organization, compassionate education, and reassurance that perfection is never the goal. --------------------------- By the end of this course, students will be able to: • Understand the unique prenatal, birth, and postpartum experiences of families expecting multiples. • Recognize common medical complications associated with multiple pregnancies. • Adapt postpartum doula care to meet the needs of families with twins, triplets, and higher-order multiples. • Support breastfeeding, pumping, and infant feeding in multiple-baby households. • Help parents create routines while respecting each baby's individual personality and developmental needs. • Provide practical, emotional, and educational support while preventing parental burnout.