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Birth, Postpartum, or Overnight? The US Doula Service Mix, 2026
“Doula” covers three quite different jobs: birth doulas who support labor and delivery, postpartum doulas who support the weeks after, and overnight doulas who take the night shift so parents can sleep. We mined the websites, listings, and client reviews of 8,891 doula practices to see which services each one demonstrably offers — and the mix varies more by state than you'd expect. (Journalists & bloggers: cite freely with a link — CSV below.)
The national picture
Across states with a meaningful doula presence, at least 55% of listed practices show confirmed postpartum care, at least 54% confirmed birth support, and at least 16% confirmed overnight or night-shift newborn care. These are floors, not ceilings — a practice only counts when its own website, listing, or client reviews prove the service.
Every state with 25+ listed doulas
Share of each state's listed doulas with confirmed birth, postpartum, and overnight services. Sorted by directory size.
| State | Doulas | Birth | Postpartum | Overnight |
| California | 1,232 | 50% | 60% | 22% |
| Texas | 606 | 56% | 52% | 14% |
| Florida | 576 | 53% | 47% | 14% |
| New York | 399 | 55% | 56% | 21% |
| Washington | 353 | 61% | 66% | 23% |
| North Carolina | 351 | 58% | 57% | 19% |
| New Jersey | 331 | 53% | 59% | 21% |
| Pennsylvania | 316 | 51% | 51% | 16% |
| Michigan | 316 | 55% | 52% | 9% |
| Massachusetts | 292 | 45% | 55% | 18% |
| Ohio | 290 | 51% | 51% | 8% |
| Georgia | 284 | 55% | 51% | 11% |
| Illinois | 268 | 49% | 54% | 15% |
| Colorado | 244 | 71% | 67% | 20% |
| Oregon | 213 | 65% | 61% | 15% |
| Indiana | 199 | 53% | 48% | 6% |
| Minnesota | 196 | 53% | 52% | 6% |
| Virginia | 189 | 59% | 62% | 17% |
| Tennessee | 179 | 58% | 59% | 11% |
| Utah | 178 | 63% | 53% | 10% |
| Arizona | 159 | 58% | 47% | 19% |
| Missouri | 158 | 51% | 59% | 15% |
| Wisconsin | 147 | 51% | 49% | 12% |
| South Carolina | 131 | 52% | 53% | 15% |
| Connecticut | 121 | 48% | 55% | 24% |
| Maryland | 114 | 65% | 69% | 32% |
| Alabama | 93 | 54% | 47% | 6% |
| Idaho | 92 | 63% | 53% | 5% |
| Iowa | 84 | 51% | 42% | 8% |
| Oklahoma | 81 | 52% | 56% | 10% |
| Kentucky | 81 | 62% | 51% | 12% |
| Louisiana | 79 | 43% | 44% | 8% |
| Kansas | 66 | 44% | 39% | 15% |
| New Hampshire | 62 | 50% | 63% | 18% |
| Maine | 59 | 42% | 59% | 12% |
| Arkansas | 56 | 41% | 50% | 14% |
| Rhode Island | 49 | 59% | 55% | 18% |
| Nevada | 45 | 69% | 71% | 27% |
| New Mexico | 42 | 45% | 40% | 5% |
| Vermont | 39 | 56% | 49% | 18% |
| Nebraska | 34 | 44% | 53% | 21% |
| Mississippi | 31 | 39% | 35% | 6% |
| Delaware | 29 | 41% | 45% | 3% |
| Montana | 27 | 70% | 37% | 7% |
What stands out
Maryland is America's overnight-doula capital: at least 32% of its listed practices show confirmed overnight care — roughly 2× the national floor. Overnight support concentrates around big commuter metros, where two-income households make the night shift the most-requested doula service. Colorado leads on the birth side, with at least 71% of practices confirmed for labor and delivery support — birth-doula culture runs strongest in the Mountain West and Pacific Northwest, the same regions that top our Doula Access Index.
Cite this data
This dataset is free to use with attribution (CC BY 4.0). Suggested citation:
Methodology
Service tags are mined from each practice's own public materials: its business listing and description, its website, and what clients describe in Google reviews. A practice counts as offering a service only when at least one of those sources confirms it, so every percentage on this page is a floor — “at least N%” — and real shares are certainly higher (many doulas offer services their online presence never mentions). States need 25+ listed doulas to appear; smaller samples swing too easily to be meaningful. Overnight uses the same signal as our overnight doula directory.