Double-duty doula Compassion is natural for actress Amy Pietz. As a doula, she's there to assist and comfort women during childbirth. On set, the 'Aliens in America' star uses that experience to bond with coworkers. For all involved, it's a blessing. By Dave Waldon CTW Features On the new CW comedy series "Aliens in America,"Amy Pietz plays Franny, a loving but fussy mom whose tidy, Midwestern existence is disrupted by the Pakistani Muslim exchange student her family takes into their home. It's a scene-stealing character in a highly acclaimed series, the role of a lifetime.But Pietz may already have achieved that lofty title in an area that has nothing to do with show business. For the past four years, she has worked as a doula - the person whose sole task is giving comfort and support to women during and after the births of their children. "This is my second career, and it's great," says Pietz,who's best known as LeaThompson's randy best friend on the '90s sitcom"Caroline in the City." TheWisconsin native has enjoyed success as an actress for 15 years, but she says proudly that "[being a doula] is the hardest work I've ever done."And it's also one of the fastest growing birth-related occupations today.There may be as many as 10,000 doulas currently in the United States, estimates DebbieYoung, president of DONA International, the largest doula organization in the world. Her group has certified more than 6,000 doulas, a far leap from 1991 when DONA was founded with just 30 members. Doul-huh? If doulas have you confused,DONA International, the world's largest doula organization,offers a little FYI. What's a doula? A birth doula is a person trained and experienced in childbirth who provides continuous physical,emotional and informational support to the mother before,during and just after childbirth. What does the word "doula" come from? The word"doula"comes from ancient Greek,meaning"woman's servant." Throughout history and in much of the world today,a cadre of women support a woman through labor and birth,giving back rubs and providing continuous emotional support.Like their historical counterparts,DONA International birth doulas know how to help a woman in labor feel better. However, today's doulas are much more diverse than their predecessors. DONA International membership includes men and women from a wide range of ages and cultural backgrounds. What effect do doulas have? Numerous clinical studies have found that a doula's presence at birth: •Tends to result in shorter labors with fewer complications • Reduces negative feelings about one's childbirth experience • Reduces the need for pitocin (a labor-inducing drug), forceps or vacuum extraction • Reduces the requests for pain medication and epidurals,as well as the incidence of Caesarean Do doulas replace medical staff? No.Doulas do not replace nurses or other medical staff.Doulas do not perform clinical or medical tasks, such as taking blood pressure or temperature, monitoring fetal heart rate,doing vaginal examinations or providing postpartum clinical care.They are there to comfort and support the mother and to enhance communication between the mother and medical professionals. Source:DONA International "Whenever I tell someone what I do, they always say,'Oh, that sounds great. I wish I would have one,' " saysYoung, who's based in Lowden, Iowa."It's probably always been in the back of our minds, but we didn't know we had the option for that earlier." Indeed, doulas have existed for centuries, long before someone gave a name to what they did.They often came in the form female family members and friends who would gather around the expectant mother as labor began to give the care needed in the hours and days ahead. Even in modern days, the ways of doulas can be subtle:Young has taken part in more than 300 births since she started in 1988 but didn't realize she was a doula until 1991,when she read an article about the concept."I said,'Hey, that's what I do!' " she recalls, laughing. Pietz had her own"unofficial"doula experience 14 years ago when she had a baby that she would give up for adoption. She credits two people, a man and a woman, for giving her the support she needed at the time. "Instead of an experience that could have been traumatic and lonely, they turned it into a really unbelievably re- warding one," says Pietz,who was adopted herself."I realized their value in the process of birth." It was then that Pietz,who has always had an interest in science, resolved to take up nursing or midwifery if her acting career didn't take off. Fast-forward to the summer of 2003,when Pietz returned to those thoughts.This time she considered an alternative to possibly watching the roles fade away as she approached her 40s. "I wanted to start going to medical school for midwifery, so I called my OBGYN, and he suggested that I try being a doula first. I didn't know what a doula was." Eventually Pietz realized it was, in fact, the care of doulas that she had experienced when she had her baby. So she followed her doctor's lead and went through the training to become a birth doula, including the two-and-a-half years required to obtain DONA certification. Pietz's original intent was to work with women who, like her,planned to let their babies be adopted, but she has yet to have such a case.With the cases she does take on, she is careful not to let her acting gigs interfere with her doula duties.Her diligence in that regard is a testament to how seriously she takes her responsibilities to her clients. For example, Pietz prefers to spend as much time as possible with the moms-to-be, their families and even their physicians before the birth - as much as 80 hours, if possible. "I spend a lot of time prenatally preparing the woman psychologically, subconsciously, emotionally - giving her help with nutrition and exercise, bonding with her partner, clearing up any misunderstandings or alleviating any fears about the birth process," she says."It's also so she gets to know and trust me so that I feel to her that she could be at her very worst and most vulnerable to me and still relax." The bottom line is for doulas not to replace a doctor or nurse or even a midwife but just to be present at the birth or afterward to allow the mother to be as comfortable as possible so to avoid complicated situations. Meanwhile, Pietz attributes her work with new moms with helping her performance as a longtime mom on"Aliens in America":"I feel that being a doula has helped me to bond with the two actors (Dan Byrd and Lindsey Shaw) playing my children … to give me an undercurrent of deep love toward them. I can imagine that more fully; I can feel it more fully." Being a doula, along with her additional work on behalf of the Special Olympics and breast cancer awareness, helps Pietz chill out, especially when it comes to playing Franny."My jaw hurts at the end of the workday,my body is clinched,my back is clinched, because I'm playing a very tight woman," she says."And what I've done in my personal life allows me to do is to loosen up and relax after I'm done working." Pietz plans to balance her two professions, maybe segueing to full-time doula work if the acting slows down. In the meantime, if she can dispel some of the myths about doulas, including that they are all into NewAge culture, that's fine. "I wear a lot of makeup and short dresses," she says."And some people really feel comfortable around that.Some women are, like,'Thank God you're not a hippie!'" © CTW Features