What should a doula include in their packages?

Most birth packages cover four things: prenatal meetings, on-call availability from a set week, continuous support during labour, and one or more postpartum visits.

What to make explicit:

• Number and length of prenatal visits, and whether they happen at your location or theirs.
• When on-call begins, usually a specific week of pregnancy, and when it ends.
• What continuous support means. That you stay for the duration rather than for a set number of hours.
• Postpartum visits. How many, how long, and what they typically involve.
• Backup arrangements. Who covers if you cannot attend, and when they would step in.
• What happens if the birth goes differently than planned. A caesarean, an induction, a transfer. Families worry about this and rarely ask.
• Communication between visits, and what access looks like.

The exclusions matter as much as the inclusions. Doulas provide non-clinical support, and being clear about that boundary protects both the client relationship and your scope.

Listing all of this prevents the most common misunderstandings and reads as professionalism to a family comparing options.