ACOG Committee Opinion 766 (2019)
ACOG officially endorses doula care
ACOG calls doula support "one of the most effective tools to improve labor and delivery outcomes."
ACOG, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, issued Committee Opinion 766 in 2019 endorsing doula care. The specific language: doula support is "one of the most effective tools to improve labor and delivery outcomes." This endorsement matters because ACOG is the professional body that sets the practice standard for the majority of US obstetricians.
The opinion includes the evidence base from the Cochrane review and recommends that women have access to continuous labor support. Implementation has been slow. Most US hospitals do not yet make doulas part of standard care, and most US insurance plans do not cover doula services, though Medicaid coverage is expanding rapidly.
2019
Committee Opinion 766 issued
Endorsed
Official ACOG position
Most US hospitals
Still do not provide doulas
Most plans
Do not yet cover doula care
Why it matters
When the major professional body of US obstetrics formally calls doula support one of the most effective tools available and most hospitals do not yet provide it, the gap between evidence and practice in obstetrics is visible in real time.
This is one finding from the research library behind How to Birth a Mother. Everything here traces back to a study, a dataset, or a systematic review.