Latest reads from my blog
The incredible things doulas do to support their clients
A criticism that is commonly heard in the doula world is that doulas are expensive. In the UK, healthcare is free at the point of contact. This can lead some people to believe that they shouldn’t pay for services when it comes to supporting people around anything linked to health and well-being. Last week, I…
Drum healing, bullshit?
I want to tell my story into drum healing because I hope that it may encourage others to explore this modality too. Before I moved from science into doulaing I had a friend called Peter Voshol who is a scientist and a shaman and made drums and did drum healing. I remember thinking :drum healing?…
Nurturing postpartum recipes-Chicken and red date soup
Yesterday I cooked and delivered a traditional Chinese postpartum dish called chicken and red date soup to a new mother. It is a tradition I started a few years ago when I supported my first Chinese client as a birth doula. She found me by asking if there was a Chinese doula in the local…
Why I want to change the nature of postnatal support
Earlier this week I wrote a blog that’s been playing on my mind for many years. It’s called “why I wish I had hired a postnatal doula” In this blog I explain how challenging I found new motherhood, how lonely and upset I felt through those early weeks and how I longed for some support…
Why I wish I had hired a postnatal doula
When I was pregnant with my first child, I hired a birth doula. This was the best thing I have ever done and it has had positive effects beyond anything I could have expected, because it didn’t just impact how positive my pregnancy and birth were, it led to a complete transformation of who I…
The “untried penis”
Women sometimes get told that they cannot give birth at home with their first baby because they have an “untried pelvis”. What if we told men they couldn’t have sex at home the first time because they have an “untried penis” Just imagine a young couple going to see a health professional, to discuss their…
How a doula can support you if you are having a planned cesarean birth
It’s a commonly held belief that there is no point having a doula if you are having a planned cesarean, and I want to debunk this myth. I too, once believed that I couldn’t justify charging to support a woman who was having a planned caesarean. There would be no on call period, no phone…
Taking the red pill: why I became a doula course leader
The Developing Doulas course, and its founder, Maddie McMahon, have a special history for me. Back in 2005, when I was pregnant with my son, I hired Maddie as my doula. The experience was so incredibly empowering and life transforming that it started me on the path of a complete career conversion, and I went…
Confessions of a hippy scientist : 3 years on.
Three years ago today, I published a blog call “confessions of a hippy scientist“. In this blog, I came out as a science meets woo person, something I had shied away from for a couple of years. You see I’ve got a PhD in biology and spend 20 years working as a research scientist. When…