Behind Closed Doors: The Hidden Connection Between Birth and Death Doulas
I am often asked the question, “What does a doula do?” My quick answer is usually something like, “A doula is someone who ushers people through a specific experience, providing support during that transition.” The deeper answer is that a doula’s role is so specific to their expertise, the people they are supporting, and their own personal convictions that there is no one set way to “doula.”
Recently, I had the chance to meet with a group of death doulas through a meet-up called The Doula Lounge through Death Doula Los Angeles, where I met doulas of all kinds: death or end-of-life doulas, abortion doulas, birth doulas, and postpartum doulas. Getting to connect and share experiences revealed something I have been thinking about ever since: birth and death are more alike than we realize.
As Francesca Lynn Arnoldy points out in Cultivating the Doula Heart, birth and death are not opposites. Rather, they are experiences that all beings on this earth will go through. They are the big bookends of our time on earth, as well as major moments we will witness in others’ lives. Both require care and support, yet both tend to happen behind closed doors. Because of this, many people arrive at these moments unprepared, overwhelmed, and vulnerable.
What We Aren’t Taught
As a postpartum doula, I work with new parents who are often blindsided by just how much they didn’t know about birth, postpartum recovery, and even basic newborn care. It’s not their fault—our culture does not prepare people for these realities. We celebrate pregnancy, but we don’t talk about what birth is actually like. We focus on the baby, but we don’t discuss the physical and emotional healing a parent goes through. The expectation is to “bounce back” as quickly as possible, despite the fact that healing takes time, help, and rest.
Death doulas experience something similar. Many of them work with people who never planned for their own death, who never had conversations about what they wanted at the end of their life, and who now feel rushed, lost, or afraid. Just like new parents, they’re stepping into a massive transition without a roadmap.
Failure vs. Humanity
One of the things that really stuck with me from our discussion at the doula meet-up was the idea that our culture sees death as a failure. One doula said, “We live in a culture that prioritizes youth… we aren’t allowed to get old.” That, combined with a medical system focused on prolonging life, frames death as a failure. For example, the way we talk about terminal illnesses—framing death as a “loss” of a battle—implies that survival is a matter of choice, rather than death being an inevitable part of life.
The more I thought about this stigma, the more I saw the same pattern in postpartum care. Parents are made to feel like they’re failing if they don’t “bounce back” after birth, if they need rest, if they struggle. We treat both death and postpartum as things to get past as quickly as possible—because in a culture that values productivity, if you aren’t productive, you’re not useful. We limit the time one can take off work to recover from both birth and the death of a loved one. We have neglected our intuitive need to pause in the thresholds of life’s impactful moments.
Needing care, needing time, needing help—none of those things make you weak. They make you human.
Bringing These Moments Into the Light
What if birth and death weren’t hidden behind closed doors? What if we talked about them, prepared for them, made space for the support that people truly need? That’s what doulas do. We hold space for these transitions, helping people move through them with knowledge, care, and dignity.
So the next time you hear the word “doula,” know that we aren’t just here for birth. We’re here for life’s biggest moments, the ones that shape us, the ones we’re often told to endure in silence. And we don’t have to.
Maybe it’s time to open the door.
