PALS Mission, Vision & Values
Our Mission
The Pacific Association for Labor Support is a membership organization dedicated to the development of the doula profession and to supporting its members. Fundamental to doula care is the understanding that continuous emotional support with reassurance during the birthing process improves and enhances maternal-infant outcomes and maternal satisfaction. The primary purpose of the doula profession is to positively influence the childbearing experience for women and their families.
Our Vision
The Pacific Association for Labor Support envisions a world where the importance of birth to women, babies, families and the entire community is acknowledged. Women’s experiences in birth will be honored and the empowering and transformative potential of the birth process will be recognized. The role of the doula will be accepted as an integral part of maternity care, and the doula profession will be a sustainable and viable career option.
Core Values & Guiding Principles
- Childbirth is a significant life experience that has a lasting
influence on families.
- Specifically, the support—continuous emotional care, encouragement,
education, physical comfort and confidence—that a woman or her family
receives during childbirth provides the opportunity for a lasting
positive effect on their lives.
- The doula
ensures that the woman’s and her family’s support needs are met during
labor.
- In order
to continue meeting the support needs of laboring women and families,
doulas benefit from a community that provides mutual support,
education, and leadership.
To these ends, our goals are:
- All
childbearing women shall have knowledge of, and access to, doula care.
- Women’s emotional and physical comfort needs in labor support will
be met, as this is the doula’s sole role.
- Babies
will be born into a supported environment.
- To promote
adherence by our member doulas to the PALS Code of Ethics and
Standards of Practice.
- To ensure
doulas provide high quality labor support to our clients as an
effective means to improve maternal and child health.
- To provide
services that are culturally sensitive and responsive to the needs of
doulas and the women they serve.
- To offer
continuing education as a way to improve the quality and on-going
education of doulas.
- To provide
information and services to the public and medical community to
promote a broader understanding of labor support practice and the
doula profession.
- To
maintain communication and participation in coalitions and other
organizations who share PALS commitment to improving maternal and
child health.
- To
maintain a viable, ongoing professional organization with the
resources necessary to achieve these goals.
- To provide
business, lifestyle and community support to our membership.
- To provide opportunities for professional growth through
apprenticeship and mentoring programs.
Board of Directors | Open Arms Perinatal Services
