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Hollywood lewd dude Vince Vaughn is always on the prowl for outrageous movie roles - he's played everyone from a randy divorce mediator (Wedding Crashers) to Santa's badass brother (Fred Claus).

Now, the actor and producer is betting on the shock value of his latest film in development, a Universal Pictures comedy called Male Doula.

But male doulas are hardly fiction.

Keith Roberts of Colorado Springs, Colo., has the same training and work experience as a traditional doula - a person, usually a woman, who gives emotional and physical support to a couple before, during and after childbirth.

In the past 11 years, Mr. Roberts has worked as a doula on 127 births. Nine years ago, he became certified with the world's largest doula association, Dona International, and he now gets referrals from obstetricians.

Mr. Roberts says few potential clients have balked at the idea of a male doula. Expectant fathers often appreciate his male energy, he adds, "so the barrier of being male has been no barrier at all."

Nevertheless, certified male doulas are "extremely rare," according to Debbie Young, president of Dona International, which has only a handful of men among its roughly 6,500 members.

Michele O'Callaghan, president of the Canadian Doula Association, says she doesn't know of any certified male doulas in Canada. The organization would grant membership to a man who was properly trained, she says, but "it is controversial."

Some of the association's members question whether aspiring male doulas are "sickos who get off on [childbirth]," Ms. O'Callaghan says.

In Colorado Springs, Chris Brandt says he had no qualms about having Mr. Roberts massage his wife Amanda and see her partly naked during labour.

"In my mind, it's not much different than a male doctor," Mr. Brandt says.

In October, Ms. Brandt gave birth to a son after a 40-hour labour in the hospital without pain medication. "We wouldn't have been able to have a natural childbirth without Keith there," she says.

A doula needn't be a woman or have personal experience giving birth, Ms. Young says. "It takes having a warm heart, a passion for helping pregnant and postpartum women and the training [to make] you a good doula."

Some men take doula courses without becoming certified, she adds. Male participants at Dona workshops have included husbands whose wives are pregnant and language interpreters who hope to offer immigrant women additional support during labour.

Daniel Pena of San Antonio, Tex., says he decided to become a doula after working with pregnant women as a fitness instructor and prenatal massage therapist.

"I love to comfort expectant moms - that's the basis of my entire practice," he says.

Mr. Pena became certified with Dona in 2005 but he hasn't renewed his membership recently. He says his doula business is slow because of his gender. "San Antonio is so conservative," he says.

Other men face similar obstacles.

Tony Nenninger, a doula and law student in Columbia, Miss., says he attended a Dona workshop but was barred from midwifery and prenatal-yoga teaching classes offered by other organizations. Instructors insisted he was "not in the right club," he says, "which is what a woman would have been told 20 years ago about climbing the corporate ladder."

Mr. Nenninger says he was drawn to doula work after assisting in the births of his two sons. Over the past decade, he says, his doula services have ranged from floating a birthing woman in a pool to bringing meals after the birth.

Mr. Nenninger doesn't charge for his labour support, which he describes as a spiritual practice. "It's definitely a part of my life and something I identify with," he says.

Elias Kass, a doula based in Seattle, takes a more career-oriented approach. He took doula training at Seattle Midwifery School in 2006 and is now studying naturopathic maternity care at Seattle's Bastyr University.

Although his doula practice is just starting up, Mr. Kass says at least one family has sought him out specifically because he's a man, and female doulas have welcomed him, with few exceptions.

It may be the way he markets his services. Mr. Kass has taken to calling himself a "daddy doula" - someone who helps the dad help the mom.

"I think for some guys, it's nice to have another guy there to talk to," he says.