There is a classic science fiction novel you may have heard of, called The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The book itself is not a guide to the galaxy. Instead, it is about the guide, which is an electronic device, a bit like a smart phone except the idea was thirty years before smart phones, and it contained all the information you could possibly need to survive on any planet anywhere in the universe, assuming you could fing the relevant information and read it before you got melted, crushed, asphyxiated, or eaten.
The most important part of the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide was the cover, which said, in large friendly letters, Don’t Panic.
Those two simple words—“Don’t panic”—are the best first advice anyone can get when they find themselves in stressful circumstances, whether those circumstances involve unfamiliar surroundings, a wild amount of difficult tasks, or an actual medical emergency. As a doula, you may even find yourself facing all three at once!
The first thing to remember is, don’t panic. For one thing, panic never helps. As a matter of fact, panic tends to be contagious—if one person starts to lose control, it often upsets the people around them and gets them upset as well, and then everyone is panicking and no one is solving any problems.
For another thing, if we are assuming that you went into this stressful situation with your doula hat on, that means it is literally your job to stay calm. Your clients hired a doula because they wanted someone on their team who knows what to do, right? Well, sometimes you won’t necessarily be sure what to do, and that’s okay. Don’t panic. Calm is almost as contagious as hysteria, so take a deep breath, ground yourself, and get to work. It’s okay if you have to check your notes, or call another doula, or lock yourself in the bathroom for a couple minutes to get yourself together.
Do whatever you need to do to get centered, so you can approach the problem calmly, whether it’s an emotional family member or a messy patient. Whether it’s something you’ve handled a thousand times before or whether you’re making it up on the fly, you’ll do just fine as long as you don’t panic.
Of course, you don’t have to wait for an emergency to come up to figure out how to deal with it. There’s a lot you can do for yourself ahead of time, by keeping informed through IDLM classes and CE workshops and staying connected in the Movement. We try to have as many resources available for you as possible, to give you the tools you need to provide the best possible care and bring the best possible knowledge to your clients and their families. So stay connected with us here at IDLM, because we are always here to support you. Our goal is to make it so that panic isn’t even an option.
