Can't the medical staff help me?

While nurses are always around, there is often an unrealistic expectation that the doctor or midwife will be there all the time, or that the nurses will always be available to help.  Nurses are definitely helpful, but their focus is, and must be, on the health of mom and baby.  They also are responsible for multiple patients, and when the labor and delivery floor is busy, they too are busy.  While a midwife will often be more present than a doctor, the same applies in that she will often have multiple patients to care for.

A doula helps to "fill the gap" left in today's medical model of labor: the care of a continuous, one-on-one person that is knowledgeable about birth, and who has walked the road of labor.