Debbie Allen Doula

My wife and I hired Debbie to be our birth doula after meeting her at a «meet the doulas» event in Santa Monica. We hit it off with Debbie right away and knew she would be a good choice.
Debbie came to our house when my wife went into labor. She arrived first thing in the morning (we had slept through the night) and began making my wife comfortable.
Within an hour or so, Debbie told me my wife felt like she needed to push, so we should consider going to the hospital. Before going, we took a look and saw the baby’s head starting to crown. I called 911 but before the paramedics/​firefighters had arrived, Debbie and my wife delivered the baby at home.
She was calm under pressure and did a great job keeping us calm along with her. While I wouldn’t recommend an unplanned home birth, I definitely recommend Debbie as a birth doula.

We hired Debbie as our postpartum doula and I could not recommend her more highly. We saved the time of having to take childbirth preparation classes (we only took the infant CPR classes) with the assurance that Debbie could teach us every thing else we needed to know. And she did. How to use baby carriers, breastfeeding on my side, using the breast pump, choosing bottles, utilizing out baby closet. And then there were all the things I needed help with that I could not have anticipated: interacting with our older child, grocery shopping, wrapping that elastic band thing around you that you get after a C-​section. Debbie also does placenta encapsulation (I know it sounds weird, but google it, really!) and did a fine job for us on that as well. Made arrangements at the hospital and everything. When she wasn’t with us, Debbie answered my small questions by text when I wasn’t sure if X was normal for our newborn. More importantly, Debbie is just a fine person. We trusted her immediately, she’s gregarious, friendly, helpful with everyone in the family and an overall good person. I can’t imagine a better postpartum doula.

We hired Debbie as our post-​partum doula, to help us get adjusted to new parenthood right when we returned from the hospital. She was wonderful — extremely knowledgeable (in which we learned tips to feed/​nurse, change and calm the baby), patient and caring to the baby, and very kind and helpful to us new stressed-​out parents. She is a great listener and had such a positive attitude — being open to doing anything we as new parents needed, from cooking to working overnight/​night shift to give us a break. We highly recommend Debbie as a doula, and wish in retrospect we hired her for a labor/​delivery doula as well.