Are you looking for support through your pregnancy, birth and early parenting that centres you as a whole, complex person?
Maybe you’ve given birth or experienced pregnancy loss before and found that the support you had was missing something, and/or that you’re among the unacceptably high numbers of those that have suffered birth trauma as a result of poor care.
Or perhaps you’re pregnant for the first time (or hoping to be) and have already figured out that what you need isn’t on offer from the maternity services or your current community set up.
You’re on to something checking out doula support. An ever growing wealth of evidence links a positive experience of birth with individualised, respectful, emotional support: a crucial facet of care which is sadly all too often found lacking.
And you’re right that it matters. How birth is experienced has profound, long term implications for self -esteem, relationships, mental and physical health, your baby’s first experiences as well as for the foundations of parenthood.
Your autonomy and agency guide the shape of the support I provide. I offer deep and wholehearted respect for who you are and the choices you make as you find your way through the transformational rite of passage of childbearing to parenthood and the new version of yourself on the other side.
I’m well connected within a wonderful array of local, national and international maternity communities that support all aspects of wellbeing through the childbearing year and can help you find your way to whichever support services you feel you need. I have 15 years worth of birth obsession (and the books, access to resources, research, real stories, tips, strategies, tools and various trainings that come with that) to share with you. I’m also experienced in navigating East Kent’s NHS maternity landscape and give much of my time trying to improve communication between the community of service users and the maternity service. Whether you’re freebirthing or would like advocacy for a positive cesarean, I’m here for you.
Have a look here at what some families I’ve worked with have to say about how my support has made a difference to them.
I have been doulaing since 2008, ever since a dear friend interrupted my midwifery degree to ask me to support her in this way. The freedom to provide true, non-directive, continuous and respectful support was the very thing I’d been feeling the (traumatising) lack of in my midwifery experience. I jumped ship and, with a pause here and there to have two babies of my own, haven’t looked back.
Birth is an important reflection of - and catalyst for change in - our society. It's my privilege to try to make a difference in that.