Download the toolkit here: 

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The Maine Hospital and Doula Collaborative is an initiative to improve inter-professional
relationships between hospital staff and doulas. In order to provide the best care to patients and clients during birth, there must be collaborative working relationships between doulas and hospital teams. However, there are few practical roadmaps for how hospitals and doulas can work together to create meaningful relationship-based changes in clinical care settings. The toolkit provides guidance on tangible steps toward collaboration and allows hospitals and local doulas to work together to identify simple, individualized ways to better integrate independent doulas into hospital care teams.

 

MaineCare coverage of doula services will begin in 2028 and coverage by private insurance is likely to follow in coming years. As a result, Maine will see an uptake in the utilization of doula services, a more diverse doula workforce, and more doulas present in hospitals as they accompany their clients through birth. In anticipation of these changes, Maine Doula Coalition (MDC) has initiated the Hospital and Doula Collaborative to help hospital staff and doulas prepare for this change. Quality improvements are facilitated via hospital champions and local doula liaisons working together through a structured process to improve understanding, trust and bi-directional communication. The process was piloted at MaineHealth Maine Medical Center, Central Maine Medical Center and Mount Desert Island Hospital in 2025 through a grant provided by The Bingham Program. Evaluation of the program is ongoing and full report of the pilot results is forthcoming in late 2026.

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For more information about the program or for programmatic support , please reach out to MDC co-director Sarah Tewhey at sarah@mainedoulacoalition.org