Pam Sulton is a doula, a trained professional who provides physical, emotional, and informational support during pregnancy, labor, and postpartum. Her work has taken her across South Carolina and even abroad to Tanzania.
In 2024, Sulton invited her friend, Yvonne Smith, to join her at StoryCorps to share what inspired her to become a doula and some of her experiences along the way, a conversation Sulton hopes to leave as a legacy for her family so that they may know how much she enjoyed helping bring new life into the world.
TRANSCRIPT:
Smith: So tell me, Pam, what made you decide to be a doula?
Sulton: Well, I was at the hospital, and I was volunteering, and so two nurses came up to me. I was doing dietary. They said, "Would you like to be a doula?" And that's where it started.
Smith: And how long have you been a doula?
Sulton: As of this April, 27 years.
Smith: Wow. Now, what are the different types of doulas?
Sulton: Well, they're birth doulas, and they're postpartum doulas. So the birth doula is the person who's there with you during the birthing process. The postpartum doula is the doula that goes home with you.
Smith: And what type are you?
Sulton: I am both.
Smith: And what exactly are the responsibilities of a doula in the hospital?
Sulton: A birth doula is basically being with the mother during that whole birthing process. The postpartum doula will follow suit. You don't always have a birth and a postpartum doula. You can choose to have a postpartum doula. And then as soon as you get home, that postpartum doula comes and visits you and helps you with any and everything to help you and the people that are around you and around the baby to settle in.
Smith: And what are the responsibilities of that postpartum doula at home?
Sulton: In the morning, when I do come and visit them, I actually am doing things like breastfeeding. I'm doing bottle feeding, I'm doing "cueing." There's certain cues that babies give you. I'm helping them with a schedule. Not a schedule for the baby, a schedule for all the other people that will come in and help you do everything you don't need to be doing.
Smith: Do you have a special memory or any funny memories?
Sulton: Oh, I can tell you one thing about my husband. With our first child, we had gone to all the classes, and my husband's a fireman, and he had it down, now. He'd seen it all. But this was our first child. And so I told my husband on the way to the hospital, "Don't drive the car like you're in the fire truck." What did he do? I had to get there. And he was driving like he was in the fire truck. And so, a comfort measure that I used, I turned with my buttocks up and my head down in the backseat. It was so comfortable because the baby would go down and not press down. And my husband, he just laughed at me. I said, "This is comfortable. This is where I'm going to be." I was that way until I got to the hospital. Once I got in, I had already coached my husband. I kept telling him, I said, "This is what I want you to do. And we did these classes and everything." And I looked at my husband, and I said, "What are you supposed to be doing?" He said, "I don't know. What are the classes..?" I said, "Do what you need to do!" You know. And that was just so funny that once you're in with your loved one and what they want you to do is to be there for them, not to speak for them, but to be there for them. And so we laugh about it now, but I wasn't laughing then. So that I'd like to end our conversation with. Yvonne, you don't know how much this really, really means to me that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will hear, my family members will hear, how much I've enjoyed doing what I've done for the last 27 years. Thank you.
Smith: Thank you.
