ACOG Committee Statement: Partnering With Doulas in Clinical Settings
Key Dates & Details
What Happened
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a new committee statement, "Partnering With Doulas in Clinical Settings," during the week of July 13, 2026. The statement was co-authored by ob-gyns and practicing doulas and is scheduled to appear in the August 2026 issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology. It sets five recommendations for ob-gyns: learn doulas' scope of practice, build teams that include doulas, educate patients about doula roles and local resources, understand the coverage and access pathways for doula support, and advocate for research on clinician-doula partnership.
ACOG grounded the statement in the outcomes evidence: doula support is associated with shorter labor, fewer cesarean deliveries, higher breastfeeding initiation, and greater birth satisfaction, with the largest benefit for patients who have historically been marginalized — certain racial and ethnic groups, low-income patients, incarcerated patients, and patients with substance use disorders. The statement explicitly addresses payment, noting that Medicaid coverage of doula services varies significantly by state.
Who It Affects
Ob-gyns, hospital labor and delivery units, community-based doula organizations, doula workforce and training companies, Medicaid agencies building or implementing doula benefits, and maternity platforms that employ or contract doulas as part of a care model (Maven, Wildflower, Flourish Care, Cayaba Care, and the community birth-worker networks).
Business Implications
This is a credentialing event, not a payment event, and that distinction is the whole story. Doula Medicaid coverage has expanded fast (27 states plus DC covering as of April 2026, with seven more implementing), but PHD's May 3 Deep Dive on doula Medicaid infrastructure identified the binding constraint as the floor: rates too low to sustain a workforce, and clinical settings that treat doulas as visitors rather than team members. ACOG's statement addresses the second constraint directly. The national body that sets ob-gyn practice standards is now telling its members to build doulas into the care team.
For companies, this changes the sales conversation with health systems. Hospital L&D units that previously treated doula integration as a patient-preference accommodation now have a professional-society recommendation to point to, which lowers the internal justification cost for doula-inclusive programs. It also strengthens the case for doula credentialing, scheduling, and billing infrastructure as a product category, because "build synergistic teams that include doulas" implies operational plumbing most hospitals do not have.
What it does not fix is the rate. Arkansas is the instructive example: Act 124 and Act 965 of 2025 mandated Medicaid and private insurance coverage for certified community-based doulas, and as of July 2026 the Arkansas Department of Human Services was still finalizing reimbursement rules (resolved July 22 — see Arkansas SPA AR-26-0004).
Key Dates
- 2025: Arkansas enacts Act 124 (Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies Act) and Act 965 establishing doula certification and coverage mandates
- 2026-07-16: ACOG releases the committee statement
- 2026-07-21: Arkansas Center for Health Improvement reports state reimbursement rules still not finalized
- August 2026: Statement scheduled for publication in Obstetrics & Gynecology
Sources
- ACOG: New guidance for ob-gyns on partnering with doulas
- ACOG: Partnering With Doulas in Clinical Settings (committee statement)
- ACHI: ACOG urges ob-gyns to collaborate with doulas
- NASHP: State Medicaid approaches to doula service benefits