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A mom has gone viral for explaining what it’s like to hire a postpartum doula to help watch her newborn baby overnight.
Mom-of-two Brittany Bright, 28, from Arkansas, who goes by @itsbrittanybright on TikTok, posted a video last month explaining a typical night with her postpartum nighttime doula.
"So this is what it looks like for a typical night with our postpartum nighttime doula," Bright says in the clip. "First I get the baby ready for bed by getting him clean, getting his essential oils on and burning and prepping bottles for the doula to give him overnight."
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"She arrives at 8 p.m.," Bright adds in the clip. "At that point, I retreat to my bedroom where 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. is my time, free of all children."
"And then after a good night’s sleep, I go and relieve the doula at 6 a.m.," Bright continues. "And that is what it’s like."
Since Bright posted the video on Nov. 18, it has been viewed more than 6.4 million times.
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Many commenters on the video criticized Bright for hiring a postpartum night doula.
"Nope," one person wrote. "No. The days fly by and these middle of the night feeds are so special in the early days."
Brittany Bright went viral on TikTok for posting about having a postpartum doula after the birth of her second son, Maddox. Bright is pictured with her partner Marquis and their sons Jaxon, 5, and Maddox, 12 weeks. (Courtesy of Q Photography)
Someone else wrote: "She’s doing your job and having experiences that belong to a mother!"
"That makes me sad," another commenter wrote. "Some of my best memories are with my babies throughout the night."
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Meanwhile, other commenters were supportive of Bright’s decision to hire the doula.
"Y’all see a ‘lazy mother’ I see a mother investing in herself so she can be the best possible mother for her son," one person wrote, in part. "This mother is amazing."
Someone else said: "All moms should have this."
Another person, who said they were an anthropologist, wrote: "This is one of the many things we used to do for mothers for FREE. This is not luxury time, it is meeting basic needs."
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Bright told Fox News that she decided to hire a doula for the birth of her second son, Maddox, after she had several challenges during her first pregnancy in 2016, including a fibroid tumor on her uterus. Bright said doctors didn’t take her concerns seriously, and she ended up going into early labor at 38 weeks via emergency C-section.
After her first son, Jaxon, was born in a "traumatic" delivery, Bright said she also had postpartum depression and suffered from blackouts and hallucinations.
"All of that, that I experienced with my first pregnancy and postpartum experience is what led me to hire a doula for this pregnancy in 2021," Bright told Fox News. "I knew I didn’t want to go through all of the same things again."
Bright also said that having a postpartum doula was important to her because she, her partner Marquis and their two children live about 10 hours away from their families, who might otherwise be able to help out with child care.
"She was able to come in and provide that support for us, that familiarity that we needed," Bright said.
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Bright ended up finding a doula who also offered postpartum services. She worked with Bright from her pregnancy until Maddox was 11 weeks old.
During the postpartum phase, Bright’s doula spent two nights a week with Maddox for 10 hours a night. On those nights, Bright had time to herself. She said she was able to take care of things around the house, spend time with her partner and with her first son, Jaxon.
"She gave us time to sleep and take a shower and eat dinner and read Jaxon a bedtime story and get him off to bed," Bright said, adding that the doula assisted with Maddox's sleep training.
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Bright, who is self-employed, said she spent a long time saving the money to pay for her doula, which ended up costing a total of $5,700.
Bright said there are other ways moms can fund for a doula or other postpartum care, including health insurance, grants and in some cases, Medicaid.
Bright said that for mothers who can get postpartum care, she highly recommends it.
She said having a postpartum doula "forced me to pull back and really focus on myself and my mental health."
"I wasn’t having blackouts, I was getting the sleep that I needed," Bright said. "Mentally, I didn’t feel uneasy, I didn’t feel uncomfortable. And really, just having her there and having someone professionally who knew how to take care of me, but also knew how to take care of Maddox, it made a world of difference that we didn’t have before."
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