Find a Doula in Knoxville, TN
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Why Use Meela to Hire Your Doula?
Meela is the trusted place for parents to find top-rated doulas, connecting over 1,700 parents with vetted doulas each month. Reach out to doulas directly, or answer a few questions and let us bring you the best available options near you. All for free, no strings attached.
Certified, Expert-Vetted Doulas Near You
Our doulas are the best of the best and hold the highest standards of evidence-based, inclusive, and compassionate care. Each verified doula on Meela is vetted by a licensed medical professional and comes with multiple client recommendations, active certifications, and has extensive training and experience in perinatal care.
0 reviews • 7 families supported • 1 years experience
0 reviews • 8 families supported • 7 years experience
0 reviews • 5 families supported • 1 years experience
2 reviews • 1300 families supported • 22 years experience
3 reviews • 20 families supported • 5 years experience
Core Values of Doulas • Always Empowering — We work to lift people up and enrich the lives of others while always celebrating their individuality and uniqueness. • Always Investing — We invest in creating meaningful and lasting relationships with our clients and our community. • Always Learning — We study the ever-changing data and consumer landscape, continuously expanding our abilities and working to better ourselves. • Always Caring — We stay steady and determined in the face of adversity. We lift each other up during challenging times and cheer for one another in celebration of success. • Always Purposeful — We work together as a unified team to make an impact. We are deliberate in our actions and allow our passion to lead the way.
Care philosophy
My name is Karen, and I am a birth doula, connecting families through birth. I am passionate about mothers, babies, and families. I also have a deep desire to empower women through positive experiences of pregnancy, labor, birth, and the postpartum period. I accept Tricare Insurance, which pays for your birth! I offer birth doula services in Anderson, Knox, Morgan, and Roane Counties in TN.
Areas served
- Knoxville and surrounding areas
Reviews
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Selene
February 3, 2021 at 10:50 pm | Client review“We used Karen as our Doula for our third pregnancy. It was our first Doula experience and I regret not having a Doula for my previous two pregnancies. We had slight traumatic labor and delivery with our second baby which led us to consider a Doula for our third baby. One of my favorite things was how Karen would end our home visits with a guided meditation. I already knew that walking and doing exercising would help mom and baby during delivery but Karen gave me specific stretches and exercises to help prepare my body for labor and delivery.
Family is comforting to have in the delivery room for support but in our experience, it caused more emotional stress than anything when things got scary during our second delivery. Karen was our calm during a time when anything could have gone wrong, not only for me but for my husband. I decided to do a medicated hospital birth. Karen helped me be confident to go as long as I did without an epidural. She kept me energized and hydrated during my labor. Karen cared for me just as my own mother would have.”
Doula Services: FAQs
A doula is a professional that provides emotional, physical and educational support to new parents before, during, and after childbirth and into the early postpartum period. Doulas are companions who strive to give families a safe, positive, and healthy labor experience. They provide parents with evidence-based information and education on childbirth and are someone who the parent can turn to with questions and concerns about having a baby. Doulas also take an active role in collaborating with the parent to create a birth plan.
A certified birth doula offers advice and techniques to help reduce the stress that the parent often experiences during childbirth and provides you with education about different aspects of delivery and labor and what comes after.
There are two ways you can hire a doula through Meela in Knoxville, TN.
You can browse through the available doulas in Knoxville, TN and send the doulas you are interested in a message, introducing yourself and setting up an interview. We recommend interviewing at least three before hiring your top doula.
You can also hire a doula in Knoxville, TN in three easy steps:
- Post a job for free: answer some questions and receive responses from top-rated doulas in Knoxville, TN. It takes less than 30 seconds to post your job.
- Get your list of Knoxville, TN doulas: in a few hours, you will have a collection of doulas near you who are qualified to meet your needs. You can compare pricing, experience and read reviews. You can chat with each doula to learn more about them.
- Hire a doula with confidence: schedule virtual or in-person interviews with your top doula choices. Hire your top doula and start getting the care you deserve.
While the cost of a doula can vary based on experience and the services offered, you can expect the average cost of a doula in Knoxville, TN to be $907, which is the average cost of a doula in the state of Tennessee. The cost of a doula in Knoxville, TN can range from $672 to $1,143. These costs are based on a representative group of 73 doulas surveyed by Meela across the state of Tennessee. The average cost of a doula in Tennessee is lower than the U.S. national average cost of a doula, which is $971.
When hiring a birth doula in Knoxville, TN, you and your doula will discuss and agree upon a fee structure, and your doula will send you itemized invoices through Meela, which you can pay securely through the app.
Some insurance companies will cover all or part of the cost of hiring a doula. Contact your insurance company to find out if they offer any coverage for hiring a doula; not all insurance companies do.
You can hire two types of doulas in Knoxville, TN: a birth doula and a postpartum doula. The birth doula is during your pregnancy and through the birth of your child. They provide you with emotional, physical and educational support during your pregnancy, your labor and delivery and for the first few hours after your child is born.
A postpartum doula will support you for the first few weeks after the baby is born. They provide in-home assistance, including teaching you how to take care of your newborn, acting as lactation consultant, and can provide some night nanny services.
Yes, a birth doula can provide support during a Cesarean birth and delivery. Doulas are non-medical professionals and do not replace obstetricians, physicians, midwives or nurses. They are an additive member to the team and provide emotional, physical and informational support to the birthing parent, partner and family. It is up to you whether the certified doula can remain in the operating room during the procedure.
When you hire a doula in Knoxville, TN, your services typically include several in-person prenatal sessions, 24/7 phone and text support, full attendance throughout your labor, and several hours of support immediately following your birth.
A doula in Knoxville, TN can help you in any kind of birth. Certified doulas are able to assist parents in creating the ideal “birth environment” and help parents deliver their baby safely. A doula can provide support during the birth whether it occurs in a hospital, a home, or another birth center of some kind. Doulas are there to support you in your desired birth preferences, whether that is a preference for natural, non-medicated, assisted, C-section or anything else.
Certified doulas can also act as a liaison between you and hospital staff regarding your childbirth expectations and preferences. For example, if your preference is to have a non-medicated birth, a doula can help guide you through that process and create a personalized birth plan. A certified doula in Knoxville, TN does not replace medical staff (such as your obstetrician and nurses).
When a surgical procedure is required, there are some situations in which a birth doula can also remain in the operating room, although this is not an expected obligation. A certified birth doula can also assist hospital staff to improve the overall birthing experience. A doula in Knoxville, TN will typically stay with the parents for several hours after birth to help them with birth recovery.
Evidence suggests that a birth doula in Knoxville, TN can help improve parent satisfaction with their baby’s birth and delivery. The involvement of a doula can also lead to shorter deliveries with less complications.
Recent studies show that parents who have a support person like a doula by their side throughout labor and childbirth are more likely to:
- Give birth without the need for pain medicine
- Describe their birth experience in a positive way
- Give birth without the need for medical intervention, such as C-sections or vacuum delivery
- Experience a shorter labor
You can hire a doula early in your pregnancy to allow you time to get to know each other and to begin planning for your later trimesters, labor, birth, and aftercare. It is ideal to hire a doula when you are around 20 weeks along, but you can start looking for one before that.
It is never too late to hire a doula in Knoxville, TN; you have right up to your due date to find a doula near you and receive all the benefits of doula support.
While many people think that a doula and a midwife are the same thing, their educational background and job duties are different. Doulas are non-medical professionals who provide emotional, physical and educational support, while also offering actionable advice and guidance to new parents about how to nurture their baby.
A midwife is a certified nurse-midwife (CNM) or a certified midwife (CM). CNMs are medical professionals that are certified and licensed by the American College of Nurse-Midwives. CMs are also certified, but they do not have nursing backgrounds.
Doulas are not medical professionals; they focus on the emotional support for the parents and the family before, during, and after the birth of the baby. Their job is to provide information, advice, and support to the family not diagnose any medical conditions or provide medical advice.
Kati
December 13, 2022 at 10:41 am | Client reviewI first reached out to Kimberly in early 2020 when I found out I was pregnant with our first child. I knew I wanted a doula, but I had no idea how critical Kimberly’s care and attention would be. When my own obstetric care stopped seeing patients regularly during the early days of Covid, Kimberly was my constant. She educated me, reassured me, and most importantly, she helped me understand my options without advocating for any particular choice. I had an incredibly difficult and traumatic birth experience, and Kimberly was the only constant support (aside from my husband) during some really poor (and lack of coordination) of medical care and postpartum complications. Kimberly was so supportive in my first pregnancy that when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter in 2021, she was one of the first people I told! When, once again, Covid reared its head (this time when I tested positive when I went in to deliver), Kimberly encouraged and supported me the entire way. She even helped us as a night doula twice a week for a month or so once my husband went back to work! I can’t imagine trusting anyone else the way I trust Kimberly. For mothers – first time mothers, especially – I can’t recommend her enough!