Hiring a Certified Postpartum Doula Through CARROT Fertility

Carrots are a delicious crunchy root vegetable that is high in vitamin A. CARROT is a benefit company that works with employers. Essentially, if you are having a baby, and you work for a large company, you might want to ask if they offer CARROT benefits. We’re going to talk you through the how and why to hire a Certified Postpartum Doula through CARROT.

What Services Does CARROT Offer?

We are 100% not the experts on this! Talk to your CARROT representative. But generally, it’s important to understand that CARROT offers each employee a set lifetime amount to use for a variety of things fertility, pregnancy, birth and postpartum. We’ve worked with some parents who have a $1,000 benefit and others who have $60,000. This is a lifetime benefit, so if you plan on staying with your company and having multiple babies, it’s something you want to take into consideration. Some examples of things that parents can utilize CARROT for: IVF, birth doula, egg retrieval, surrogacy and the one we are going to dive into today: postpartum support.

Certified Postpartum Doula Through CARROT

CARROT is one of the few organizations that recognizes the benefits of in-home newborn care for new parents. However, there are restrictions. Most of the parents that we talk to are not aware of all of the restrictions on our discovery call.

1. The benefit is limited to the first 6 weeks after birth. They will sometimes take into account if the baby is hospitalized for an extended time but they determine this “on a case by case basis.”
2. They have limitations on how many providers you can have. CARROT does change these requirements, but as of today [March 2024] most parents can have one overnight doula and/or one daytime doula. There are sometimes limitations to the amount of hours that a doula can provide in a given shift, but these seem to change depending on the individual account.
3. They require the provider to be certified as a postpartum doula. There are more restrictions to the type of training, but they do seem to be pretty flexible in this regard.

How Nightingale Night Nurses Can Help You Find a Certified Postpartum Doula

Nightingale Night Nurses works with primarily Newborn Care Specialists and Postpartum Doulas. [Here is a blog on the differences.] Carrot will only pay out for a doula that has gone through the process of certification through their training organization. Certification varies depending on where they are certified through but it typically means that the doula has read some books, worked with a few families and has applied and been approved through their training organization. More and more of our team members are going through the process of becoming certified so that they can support parents utilizing the CARROT benefit.

When a parent reaches out, we are able to match them with a team member that we know will be approved by CARROT [we’ve heard horror stories]. We understand the process and will try to make it as seamless to our clients as possible!

Pros and Cons of Working With CARROT

PROS:

Uhm…FREE in-home newborn support! That seems like the biggest pro of all for a new parent!

CONS:

Okay there are some cons. CARROT has operated as a fertility company since they were established in 2016, moved into pregnancy and birth in 2020, and in 2023 they jumped feet first into the world of postpartum. It does appear that they are figuring things out as they go. Every time we work with a different CARROT family they have different requirements. For example: Last week we supported two families in submitting their CARROT reimbursement paperwork. We filled them out both with the requests of our most recent CARROT client. One of them was approved immediately. The other had EIGHT revisions and requests to add, amend or remove things. This can be very frustrating for new tired parents who the last thing they want to do is be fighting for reimbursement. For this reason many agencies and doulas are refusing to take on CARROT clients until they get their ducks in a row.

We also unfortunately cannot help parents advocate for themselves. A con on the agency end [our end] is that CARROT refuses to speak with Postpartum Doula agencies or individual Postpartum Doulas. [Trust me, we’ve tried.] They did begin an agency pilot program but recently shut it down. All of the information we have on the process we’ve learned through trial and error with many many CARROT families. The experience is different every time, but we’ve never had a parent not be approved!

Should I use my CARROT Benefits to Hire a Certified Postpartum Doula?

YES! I could go on and on with the benefits of a postpartum doula. I’ll let you read our other blogs on the topic, but trust me that it’s all good things. So let’s connect! Whether you are looking for a daytime postpartum doula, an overnight postpartum doula or one of each, we would love to help you find your perfect someone for those first 6 weeks of covered care! [And maybe beyond as well].