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Sophie Messager

Category: Doula

  • Drum healing, bullshit?

    Drum healing, bullshit?

    I have been on a journey from dismissal to powerful experience, and I want to tell my story with the hope that it may encourage others to explore this modality too. The first time I heard about drum healing from a friend my reaction was: drum healing? bullshit! It didn’t occur to me to be curious and ask my friend questions about what he did. All I felt was judgement and dismissal. It’s a funny thing isn’t it? We all accept that sounds can do medical stuff (how does a doppler work?), but because shamanic drumming has been mostly erased from our culture, we dismiss it as hippy, non evidence based woo.

    My journey into drumming as a practise came from first hand experience. In 2013 when I attended a doula retreat, and there was a drum workshop called Shamanic Work for Doulas. Amongst other things that day, the teacher led a drum journey. I was very sceptical, thinking “this isn’t going to work”. And yet, as I relaxed into the journey, I had the most vivid visions of what felt like past lives to me. The experience blew my mind and unlocked a part of me that I didn’t know about. It left me yearning for more, and I left the retreat with a desire to own a drum. I told my mother, about it, and she gifted me a Bodhran she has bought on a trip to Ireland.

    I brought the Bodhran back home, but I felt out of my comfort zone playing it. because I didn’t know how. My brother,Ā  a professional musician, showed me how to play it with the traditional stick. I I couldn’t play it well with the stick and felt disheartened. When I returned to Cambridge with my drum, I visited my friend Peter, a scientist, shaman and drum maker. I explained my quandary to him. Peter asked me what I wanted to do with this drum. “Do you want to play in an Irish band?” he asked. I said “no, I want to do some shamanic drumming”. Then he explained I didn’t need to use the stick and showed me how to make a felt beater, and how to use it. This was a very empowering moment, because Peter gave me the confidence to experiment and start drumming. It also helped shape who I am, and how to help others learn and explore in non prescriptive ways. I like to encourage people to develop skills in a way that works for them.

    I started playing my Bodhran and experimenting with it. I did this by myself and with no guidance, a way of exploring things which I now realise is quite natural for me, as a kinaesthetic learner. I have found that, whilst getting tuition from more experienced people is valuable, there is also value in exploring what a new modality feels like for you, without another person’s views affecting your experience.

    The following year, at the doula retreat there was a drumming workshop with Carolyn Hillyer, where we all drummed as a group. I absolutely loved it and wowed to make drumming a regular practise.

    That year I also ended up giving someone a closing the bones massage at the retreat. My friend Rebecca drummed in the background whilst we rocked and massaged and held the women receiving the ceremony. This felt very powerful and I asked questions to Rebecca about it and she suggested I buy a particular drum a maker on Etsy. I bought this drum shortly afterwards.

    Drumming soon became something I added to the ceremony at the end of my closing the bones workshops. I also started offering it to clients who received the ritual and who liked the idea. I loved introducing women to the powerful mind altering state that drumming provides. I had a bit of a drumming hiatus after that. Growth paths aren’t linear. I struggled with some lack of belief in my abilities to drum for a while

    In 2016 I attended another doula retreat, there was more drumming involved with a workshop that included a journey to meet our power animal. It rekindled my love of drumming big time and I felt drawn to birth my own drum. A few weeks later in July 2016, I attend a drumming making workshop with Jo Gray in Essex, Ā It was a wonderful day. I made a drum, and the most gorgeous drum beater, complete with wood burning decorations and crystals embedded in the beater’s handle. Slowly, drumming became more of a normal practise for me, thought I still had a small element of impostor syndrome about it.

    I birthed another drum at the 2017 doula retreat, where we spent 2 days making a drum with Carolyn Hillyer.Ā  13 of us doulas made this drum together. The following year we brought back our drums and drummed together which was magical. This drum became my favourite and I have used it for healing ever since. In 2017 I also felt drawn to get more learning behind my drum healing practise. I attended the Reiki Drum technique training with Sarah Gregg , during which I experienced some deep healing. The Reiki Drum techniques uses the drum to channel Reiki healing onto the person receiving the treatment.

    Joining the Reiki Drum family meant that I also got to attend Sarah’s Spring Equinox Gathering the following year. Drumming together with 60 other reiki drum practitioners was a powerful experience I will never forget. Sarah made a video of the day and if you watch carefully you can spot me in it.

    After that, drumming became something I do, and no longer felt weird. I started offering it as standard as part of my closing the bone treatments and rituals. I also used it as part of women circles, and mother blessings and group closing the bone ceremonies. I love drumming alone, but but group drumming is even more special.

    In 2019 I was lucky to become the owner of a handcarved wolf drum (my spirit animal) from the incredible talented finish drum maker Juha Jarvinen.

    In 2019 I also ticked one of my bucket list wishes: Ā to drum at a birth. I actually got to drum during a two births that year. The first one was a home birth, which felt quite natural to do. The second time, I was specifically hired by a woman who wanted me to drum at her birth. I got to drum in the hospital for the first time. There were two of us drumming during this birth. It was in the birth centre, which is staffed by midwifes who are generally more on board with natural birth than in the obstetric unit.Ā  I was still aware that it could raise some eyebrows, in a “what’s that weird hippy shit they are doing over there?”. It felt very helpful for the mothers to have drumming whilst they laboured, and I was delighted with the experience.

    In November 2019 I felt a pull to take my drum work further and I decided to train to become a Reiki Drum teacher. I did 24 reiki drum sessions in the space of a couple of months as part of my case studies. Some of my case studies had mind blowing healing experiences through it, way beyond my expectations. It only strengthened my desire to carry on. I attended the training in February 2020 and loved it. I haven’t had the opportunity to teach this modality yet due to the lockdowns, but I have found that it has had tremendous effects on my personal growth.

    Early in 2020 I also started attending a gong bath in Cambridge, which has 12 enormous gongs and some giant chimes. I had amazing experiences of relaxation from it, including feeling the ground move under my body, and I could still feel the benefits the next day. If you have never had a drum journey or healing session, I truly recommend it. It is incredibly relaxing, I liken it to having a massage in your brain. It frees your way of thinking and allows you to look at problems and issues sideways and find your own creative solutions.

    In 2020 I also started running monthly drum circles in Cambridge. It went better than I could have imagined. 14 people turned up to the first 2 live sessions, many of which had never done any drumming before. It worked extremely well and all where delighted by the experience. During the first lockdown I ran it on zoom, and then outdoors in the woods over the summer. I am still running these circles 3 years on, and this has included running them online (during lockdowns) as well as in person.

    In May 2020 I turned 50. I started the day drumming in the woods with two other women, and we have been drumming twice a week together ever since. It has been utterly supportive and transformative. It ticks all three boxes of wellbeing for me : me connection to myself, to nature, and to people I love. I link a lot of my personal growth and development to this practise. I’ve also reached the point where drumming feels like a completely normal activity for me.

    If after reading this you still think that drum healing is bullshit, it might help you to know that there is some cool published research on the effect of drumming on the brain, completed with EEG measurement showing an altered state of consciousness. You can find a review of some of these papers hereĀ .

    French shaman and researcher Corinne Sombrun has co-created an institute of research called the Science Trance research institute , and works with neurobiologists to understand the effect of drumming sound on trance like states. One of their published papers states that:

    “We present the first neurophysiological study of a normal subject and our co-author, who had received extensive training in the Mongolian shamanic tradition and is capable of inducing a shamanic trance state at will. We integrate original research with literature review and suggest a unified psychobiological model for ā€˜alteredā€™ modes of consciousness. This model incorporates objective, subjective and intersubjective science within a broad evolutionary framework to provide a non-reductionist account of psychological, biological and social determinants of self experience that helps to bridge Western and traditional healing techniques.”

     

  • The buffet curator: an analogy for doula work

    The buffet curator: an analogy for doula work

    Imagine you were going to a buffet restaurant in a foreign country, and that you had no idea what the foods on offer tasted like, or what the dishes contained.

    Imagine that you didnā€™t speak or read the language

    Imagine that you had your own dietary restrictions, such as being vegetarian, or being gluten free, or allergic to nuts.

    Imagine that the buffet restaurant was this enormous place, with more than a hundred dishes on offer.

    Imagine that, as you started queuing in front of the dishes, that people kept moving in front of the dishes, and that you knew people behind you would become impatient if you didnā€™t move.

    Wouldnā€™t you feel stressed? Wouldnā€™t you worry that you are going to pick the wrong dishes, some that you will not like, or that could cause you a major allergic reaction?

    Now imagine if you had a guide, someone who knew the restaurant and all the dishes in it.

    Imagine if, because you even entered the restaurant, your guide had taken the time to find out about your needs, made sure they understood what you wanted (and didnā€™t want), and then explained to you which dishes you would be able to choose from. Imagine that they had even gone and asked the chef which dishes were safe for you to eat. What if the guide could even ask the chef to prepare a different dish especially for you? How much safer and enjoyable would the experience be?

    This is what a doula can and will do for you, as you enter the maze of choices that pregnancy, birth and the postpartum bring. The many options, including ones you didnā€™t even know existed. The conflicting advice you find on every single topic.

    A doula is like your own buffet curator. As your doula gets to know you, your unique needs and preferences, she can sift through the many options available to you and present you with a curated list of options which you can pick from.

    You doula cannot pick the dishes for you, only you can do that, but having the list tailored to your needs might save you a lot of time and stress.

    A doula then walks the path with you, supporting you along the way and always being available to any questions as you choose, and get to decide whatā€™s right for you. You even can change your mind at any point! Imagine how empowering this feels?

    If this resonates with you and you would like to work with me, you can find out more about the education and support I provide for families and birthworkers in the form of one to one support, andĀ online courses.

  • Ten reasons to hire a doula even if she cannot be physically present during your birth

    Ten reasons to hire a doula even if she cannot be physically present during your birth

    Whatā€™s the point of having a doula if she cannot be present physically during the birth? Arenā€™t doulas just mostly hired for their supporting presence during that special time?

    Honestly when lockdown started in 2020 and hospitals in the UK introduced restrictions to one birth partner only, I asked myself the same question. I asked myself this question because despite having worked as a doula for over 8 years I had almost no experience of supporting labour remotely. I was utterly dismayed when I found out that I was no longer welcome in the hospital along the families I was already committed to supporting. Yet over the last 10 months, whilst I didnā€™t attend many births in person, I acquired a wealth of knowledge and experience in providing incredibly different forms of support in the forever changing rules in and out of lockdown. One thing that never changed for me locally is that my local hospital never relaxed the one partner only rule (I know that other hospitals in the country did things differently).

    Interestingly, many couples still choose to hire me for support despite knowing that I may not be able to be present at their birth. I am already booked for several different families in 2021, and including some repeat clients. Iā€™m totally honest with people and explain from the onset that it is unlikely that Iā€™ll be able to be physically present during their birth, unless they birth at home. But in these challenging and unpredictable times, having the support of a doula can still make a world of positive difference to your experience of pregnancy, birth and the postpartum. Iā€™ll make a separate blog post for postnatal doulaing after this one.

    So what difference can a doula make even if she cannot be there with you at the birth?

    • 1) Antenatal education and birth choices

    In the extra challenging situation that lockdown and changing hospital policies bring, having someone to help you navigate your options is more important than ever. As your doula, I have an in depth knowledge of my local hospital policies, often being aware of policy change before members of the public. A doula can help you prepare for the unexpected and help you create birth plan that cover every possible eventuality that may present itself. Itā€™s something doulas have always done, and I wrote a blog post called Why you may want to have a plan C (for cesarean) in your birth preferences.

    • 2) Emotional support

    Having someone you have gotten to know and trust, and who is always available at the end of the phone or email when you feel the need for support is even more important than before. In most trust there is no named midwife or a person you can contact directly within the health system at the best of times, but since March 2020, with the stretched NHS, this has become worse. Several of my clients said they left messages with werenā€™t returned. Just having someone you know you can call and talk to when youā€™ve worried about anything during your pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period, can make a world of difference to your wellbeing.

    • 3) Knowledge and information

    As before the pandemic, access to knowledge and information is a big part of doula support. There is a whole maze of information to navigate! Where will you have your baby, what kind of birth do you want, what if you cannot get your preferred choice, what are your rights, whatā€™s the scientific evidence behind what you are being offered, what is right for you, yours and your familyā€™s unique circumstances? I can help you access a whole network of people, from other health professional to complementary practitioners outside of the NHS, from osteopaths to complementary therapists to breastfeeding professionals.

    I supported a family who wanted to have a VBAC (Vaginal birth after cesarean). They wanted to be in the local birth centre but had been told this wasnā€™t possible. They weren’t based in Cambridge, but through my network of birth workers, I obtained the details of the consultant midwife at their local hospital. They had a meeting with her and got granted access to the birth centre. They had a beautiful empowering waterbirth there.

    I also supported a woman who was facing an induction of labour that she didn’t want or felt was justified. We had a chat over the phone and I reminded her of her rights to choose, ahead of a meeting with her consultant. I received a very grateful email afterwards explaining that she had felt much calmer and confident going into the meeting thanks to our chat, and that the meeting had gone very well. She went into labour naturally.

    • 4) Practical support

    I am skilled in many support techniques that can help make your pregnancy, labour and birth, and postpartum period more comfortable. I can teach them to you, or signpost you to someone who can support you if you aren’t local to me.

    In 2020 several of my clients had breech babies, I was able to teach positional and rebozo breech turning techniques via video calls (I became very good at using a tripod to hold my device, and at contorsioning myself to demonstrate positions!) or in person. I was also able to signpost them to osteopaths who helped balance the pelvis so the baby had more chances to turn, or to acupuncturists who taught them how to do moxibustion. I also helped to access the information to help them decide whether having the baby turned manually (known as an external cephalic version) with an obstetrician was the right choice for them, as well as what would happen during the procedure/

    • 5) Labour preparation

    I can help you be prepared for what do expect during labour and birth, and decide what kind of comfort measures youā€™d like to use, and explore their pros and cons. I can teach you such comfort measures so you are feeling prepared and confident, even when Iā€™m not physically present.

    In 2020 I started writing custom relaxation scripts to help with things from promoting relaxation and confidence, to help turn a breech baby, to help labour start when due date had passed and an induction date was looming. I recorded myself as I lead expectant parents through those scripts and sent them the recording to listen to. One couple reported that they went into labour after listening to the “overdue” relaxation script I had sent them over and over again, and that the mother went into labour despite the pressures of the looming induction and had a very straightforward birth.

    As well as teaching you some of the many comfort and relaxation measures for labour I know, I can teach the ones that suit you to your partner. This means that your partner will feel more confident in supporting you, that the two of you can work better together, and that you are both likely to have.

    • 6) In person Labour support

    As a doula, Iā€™m still able to provide in person support in early labour at the coupleā€™s home. This means that I can come and support you when labour starts, and help you feel comfortable, confident and safe. This means that you do not have to worry about when it is the right time to go to the hospital (or call the midwife if youā€™re having a homebirth). This means that there is a reassuring presence in the background. It can help both you and your partner feel much calmer and safe. It means that you are more likely to have a straightforward experience, especially if this is your first baby and you do not know what to expect or what is normal.

    All hospitals still allow one partner, and I have supported families who chose to have me being present at the birth in the hospital, for example if the partner had to stay at home to care for older children.

    • 7) Remote labour support

    Because we will have gotten to know each other well, youā€™ll have come to trust me and feel safe with me. By the time you are in labour, knowing that there is something you can call at any hour of the day or night, and that I will be there

    As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, I was myself unsure of what difference I could make remotely. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could still make a world of difference during labour.

    I could join couples at home in early labour, I could be there on the phone or video calls in early or later labour. Because I had prepared the partner with extra techniques, when they called me describing a stall in labour, I was able to guide them through specific rebozo techniques designed to help resolve such issues with great success. I was still able to provide advocacy and help people navigate their options.

    During a birth in 2020, a partner called me as labour had stalled and there were talks of moving to theatre. As I had taught him some of the most useful labour dystocia resolving techniques I know. After asking him a few specific questions I suggested a couple of positional and rebozo techniques. The baby was born vaginally 40 min later. Another partner called me telling me that his wife had been pushing for 2h, and that due to arbitrary limits on pushing duration from the hospital, transfer to the delivery unit was being strongly suggested. He asked if they could refuse. After asking if both mother and baby were well, I reminded him that it was their decision to make. The baby was born in the birth centre pool 20 min later.

    A challenging time last year was when I had to watch a woman that I had previously supported as a doula 3 times before, walk into the hospital alone for her planned cesarean birth (my local trust currently only allows partners in the ward as they go into theatre, so the mother is alone in the antenatal ward until she gets called to go to theatre). I went to meet her in front of the hospital. I thought I hadnā€™t made a difference but later one she said ā€œIt definitely helped to still have you as my doula in lockdown as it was really lovely and comforting to know you were just at the end of the phone for a chat or advice. It was also lovely to see you outside the hospital before I went in, and to talk to you in the evening about the birthā€.

    Zelle the doula shared this account of supporting a birth over the phone (you can read the whole story here)

    ā€œIt feels like sheā€™s wrenched the phone out of her husbandā€™s hand, as her eyes lock on to mine ā€œZelle!ā€ she breathes as a surge crashes like wave over her ā€œZelle-I-really-need-an-epiduralā€ she scrunches her face up ā€œI canā€™t CANā€™T do thissssā€. I am calm. An even tone. The bit I wish I was there for, because I would stroke her hair out of her face and be gentle with her poor tired body and be slow and gentle and grounding. I have to do it all with my voice instead. ā€œA,ā€ I say. ā€œYou are so strong. You are magnificent. This is transition, that hard bit we talked about. This feeling will leave.ā€ Iā€™m conscious of the fact the adrenaline will kick in momentarily. ā€ You know what to do. Your body knows this. Youā€™ve been in labour a *long* time. Itā€™s a lot of hard work. Thereā€™s no shame in an epidural if you want one. But youā€™re wrong on one point, A, you CAN do this. I completely believe with every fibre of my being that you can do this. I believe in you.ā€ She shoves the phone back in to her husbandā€™s hand. ā€œI CAN do this!ā€ she breathes. I am so proud I wipe tears away.ā€

    • 8) Navigating the unexpected

    If anything happens during pregnancy, birth or the postpartum you can rest assured that I will be there to help you navigate the situation. From labour starting early or labour, or a sudden diagnostic of a medical situation which changes your birth choices, I have supported these kinds of scenarios for the last 8 years and I know how much of a difference it makes to have someone by your side to help you find out how to make the best of it.

    • 9) Postnatal preparation

    Postnatal preparation and support is one of my favourite topics. I feel it is so important that I wrote a book about it, called Why postnatal recovery matters. As your doula, I can help you prepare for the postpartum, be it the immediate few hours post birth in the hospital or at home (including how to prepare for the fact that most partners may not allowed to visit postnatally in the hospital), or the later parts from coming home with your baby, from feeding choices to parenting choices. As part of my contract you get 6 weeks of unlimited phone and email support after the birth of your baby.

    • 10) Postnatal support

    After your baby is born, especially if you are alone in a postnatal ward without your partner, or if you have your partner but medical staff is too busy to help support you, I can do call or video calls as soon as you need me to help answer any needs you may have. I have become skilled at provided feeding help over video calls, either myself or putting you in touch with breastfeeding counselors, who have also become very skilled at providing feeding support over video calls. More in my next blog on postnatal support during lockdown.

    Finally, here is a story from a mother I supported in 2020:

    Ā ā€œIt would be easy to feel like pandemic restrictions preventing extra birth partners would make hiring a doula pointless. After all, if they canā€™t be at the birth, why bother, right? I might have felt the same, if it werenā€™t for our experience of growing and birthing our daughter in 2020 with Sophieā€™s help.

    When the pandemic hit, and suddenly even my husband wasnā€™t allowed in to scans or appointments. Secondary birth partners were banned from births completely. These restrictions still hadnā€™t been eased by July, when I unexpectedly entered prodromal labour at 36 weeks gestation. After a week of contractions at home that werenā€™t getting any more frequent, I entered the hospital to have my labour artificially progressed. I laboured, for large parts alone, for five further days, before finally delivering my daughter by c-section (or belly birth, as I like calling it!). Again, even getting my husband into hospital to support me was a fight. The presence of a doula was a complete non-starter.

    So do I regret hiring Sophie? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

    If anything, I am MORE grateful we did because of COVID. More than ever, being asked to navigate the labyrinth of the maternity care system is a nearly impossible challenge women are being asked to undertake. Especially in a pandemic, alone. I have no idea how I would have begun to survive it without the preparation Sophie did with us, and the support she still managed to provide both during and after our birth.

    Ā I had the space I needed to process rather than internalise my grief. I had the planning and preparation I needed to take care of myself both during and after the birth. I had the support I needed to bring my baby home to an overjoyed family that was ready to receive her. I had the confidence to know I can be and am exactly the mother she needs. I was left so in awe of the work of doulas that Iā€™mĀ becoming one. ā€ Elle.

    If youā€™d like to read more about this topic, I wrote a blog called The Value of a doula, one called What do you get when you hire a doula, or why sheā€™s totally worth the money, one about how a doula can support you if you are having a planned cesarean birth, and one called The incredible things doulas do to support their clients. Whilst these were written before 2020, much of what I explain in them still applies.

    If this resonates with you and you would like to work with me, I offer education and support for families and birthworkers in the form of one to one support, and online courses.

     

  • The incredible things doulas do to support their clients

    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 was saddened to hear that a friend who runs a pregnancy and new mothers centre, complete with free drop-in groups for new mums, was questioned not too kindly by medical professionals who accused her of preying on vulnerable women. They said that support should be free.

    This is a commonly held view sadly. I gave a talk about doulas to a group of student midwifes, and this was brought up too.

    I agree that, in an ideal world, support should be available for free to all that need it. But, interestingly, people who mention this seem to be unable to realise that they, themselves, aren’t working for free, and that the NHS isn’t free, it is paid for by our taxes.

    I am yet to meet a doula who does this for the sole goal of making money. As I’ve written about before, when we break it down, most of us earn an hourly rate that is way below the minimum wage.

    Recently, I spoke to a doula who was waiting for a client to birth, way beyond her due date, and was facing the quandary of cancelling important plans, because she wants to be available for her client’s birth. This reminded me that, through the years, I’ve heard incredible stories about the lengths doulas go through, not just to be available to their clients for a whole month or more, being available at the drop of a hat, juggling incredibly complex childcare arrangements etc.  The things that doulas do in the background, rearranging really important personal stuff, unbeknown to their clients, so that they can be available for the birth, are usually only known to those who belong in the doula world.

    I want to clarify that I am not sharing these stories to make clients feel guilty or that we resent the commitments.

    Being a doula is a calling, and whilst we find this job demanding at times, it’s worth it otherwise we wouldn’t keep doing it!

    Doulas tend to keep these stories secrets in order to avoid burdening their clients, hence they don’t usually get shared from outside the doula community.

    I hope that these stories will help demonstrate the incredible level of dedication that doulas show for their clients.

    A couple of my own stories that stick out include attending a 4 day long birth. My husband’s birthday was in the middle of these 4 days, so not only I wasn’t there but he was alone with the kids for that time.

    Another time, my family and I were all packed and ready to go away for the week end. My husband is from Hong Kong and this was Chinese new year and we were due to visit his family. This is like missing Christmas. I had a client expecting twins, someone who I had already supported through the birth of her first child. She was 32 weeks pregnant. As I was walking over to our neighbours to let them know we were going to go away, the phone rang, and my client told me that they were taking her to theatre, right now! I walked back inside my house, my husband saw my face and asked me what had happened. I told him, and he said to just go to be with her and that we could go join his family the next day. I made it to my client with 10 min to spare prior to her transfer to theatre. When I returned a few hours later, overcome with gratitude, I asked my husband why he’d agreed to change our plans, he said “I could see how torn you were”.

    My client wrote me this testimonial:

    My twins were born 8 weeks early so had to go straight to NICU. I wanted my partner to go with them as I didnā€™t want them to be alone and also to make sure our wishes for them where kept. I also didnā€™t want to be left alone in the theatre so asked for my doula to be around in when my partner left. This really helped me to stay calm as I knew my babies had dad with them and I also had someone to support me as it can be very lonely even in a theatre full of doctors and nurses. Having someone to talk to and hold my hand stopped me panicking. It also meant that when I was taken to recovery I wasnā€™t by myself. It was very hard being wheeled past other mothers with their babies, I donā€™t think I would of have coped if I didnā€™t have my doula with me. She also helped me hand express my colostrum into syringes. Just having someone with my while my partner was with the babies was amazing, she kept me calm just by being by my side and holding my hand.”

    Here is a collection of stories from doulas about the amazing things they’ve have done and sacrificed in order to be there for their clients :

    I shadow doulaed for a client, I finished 9hrs in my day job, picked my girls up from childcare and got home for 1730, got the call my client was in labour at 2000 so raced over to her, stayed all night until 0530 the next morning, popped home to take the girls to childcare and then back to another 9hr shift at my day job! I worked out I went without sleep for 40hrs! But I love what I do. It is annoying when people say I charge too much but when you workout out how long you’re on call for, the extra childcare, travelling and everything else I come out the other side with very little. Working in the birthing world is definitely a ‘labour’ of love! Rachael Ruddock

    Iā€™ve worked 3 days straight with one hours sleep. I finally got home at midnight on Christmas Eve. I then had to wrap all the gifts for my 5 and 3 year old. I also missed all the festivities leading up to Christmas including the show we had tickets for. I do still love my job. Melanie Butcher

    I had to sleep in the car off a lay-by on the A1 once at 4am as I wasn’t safe to drive, I have to travel long distances as I’m rural. I keep a blanket and pillow in the car. I have slept in hospital car parks too in the middle of the night, so safety an issue. I’ve had to leave cinema showings with my kids, give up work commitments, like cancelling clinic and moving classes. Sophie Fletcher

    Iā€™ve missed Christmas Day with my kids to be with a solo mama in labour, went early so she wasnā€™t alone – the kids still bring it up. Beccy Hands

    I’ve stayed awake for 70h. Hayet Hb

    I have missed my daughters 16th birthday party, my brother in laws 30th party and my uncle’s funeral. My auntie and cousins couldnā€™t understand how I could miss a funeral but this client had many baby loss experiences and I would rather sacrifice the funeral and have my family upset with me than let down a woman giving birth. Supporting Birth and the beginning of a family is more important to me than almost anything! Beverley Hinton

    I’ve missed invitations to weddings, christenings and birthday parties. I’ve said no to informal gatherings to see friends or have dinner with grandparents. I’ve missed education sessions for the kids. I’ve skipped dental appointments, hospital appointments and other personal appointments. I have stayed awake for over 60 hours. I have dumped the kids and ran on many occasion to disappear, sometimes for a day, sometimes for several. I have not eaten or drank water for long periods. I’ve not seen my own family who are in hospital. I’ve taken 3 days to recover from a long birth. Nikki Mather

    I have been on call over Christmas and my sons birthday. This shows my commitment and the willingness to miss these special events to support another family. Bev Samways

    Iā€™ve just had my first birth and missed 2 hospital appointments, my babyā€™s 2nd birthday party, hairdressers, I did nothing on my 40th birthday just in case I was called. My mother in law changed her holiday so that she could be on call for my childcare. Iā€™m also a pregnancy yoga teacher and had to cancel 2 classes to be with my clients, losing money for both.  I didnā€™t go to a college friends reunion. Kirstie Broughton

    When I go on call my life dynamics completely change. As I have small children I have to allocate time to drop them off safely to someone before I can head-out. So I go no further the 30min out of my house range. Have all bags packed and prepared. Miss play dates, days out, constantly being alert and it can be exhausting waiting for that call. When Iā€™m there Iā€™m 100% in and the outside world doesnā€™t exist. Iā€™m as involved as the couple need me to be. I have massaged a woman once for 6 hours because she wanted me to and there wasnā€™t a partner to take over. I missed my in laws 60th wedding anniversary, turned down invitations. Doulas sacrifice a lot on day to day basis but itā€™s so worth it seeing that mother being supported and getting the best start on her long journey through motherhood. Eva Kralova

    I once had my husband pick me and my friend up from the airport after a weekend away and drive me ( in the opposite direction) straight to the hospital so that I could meet my client who had gone there in labour. My friend had to just roll with it. My husband and children hadn’t seen me for 3 nights and we had no plan for how I’d get home after. But right then she needed me and I went. It’s what we do. Amber Strong

    For two of my son’s birthdays I wasn’t there to wake up with him- because i was with clients at their babies birthday. Bitter sweet. The first time my son was young, I was a single mum and the babysitter was there. He was very upset. I got home after 48hrs and drove him to go bowling with a couple of friends. Trying to keep the wheels on. 2nd time he was older and very gracious- when speaking to me on the phone he said “It’s ok mum – I can wait for my presents until you get home – it’s important you stay with your lady until her baby comes. Gosh I blubbed.  Katie Olliffe

    Iā€™ve missed Christmas Day, my middle sonā€™s birthday morning, my partnerā€™s birthday. I go home early from rare nights out, my social life has suffered. I seldom drink. My family have left on a holiday without me & I followed them the next day. My kids complain about my job & say itā€™s the ā€˜worst job in the worldā€™. I tell them the opposite is true! Roma Hearsey

    I just made it to my best friend and my cousinā€™s weddings – leaving the birth the morning of my best friendā€™s. I have been absent for entire weekends and was called to a birth on Christmas morning – and missed my kids opening their presents. Over January I attended 4 births despite going through one of the most stressful periods of my life (divorce). One of these births was 5 days long. Itā€™s hard to explain the impact this work can have on a person’s life. Laura Scarlett

    It also affects my husband’s work – he also works from home but in an employed capacity and occasionally needs to travel around the country – when I’m on call – he has to not travel. Melanie English

    I rushed across the country on New Year eve to get a super fast birth of the first baby in the county. Our job is multidimensional and money exchange really represent partial contribution towards its value. In the old days the village would support the wise women who helped at birth through barter of services and goods and we are just monetising the same principle. Vera Dubrovina

    Iā€™ve missed birthdays, anniversaries, parties. The one time I DID set a boundary around a planned event, having missed so much throughout one year- I wasnā€™t there for my clients birth. A back up was- but it felt really hard for me- difficult feelings I had to unpack. Tortie Rye

    I missed my daughterā€™s prom to rush to a client after our birth contract had finished to support with a serious health issue. Caroline Zwierzchowska-Dod

    I went directly from an early pregnancy scan where I was told my baby had died and took a cab directly to my labouring client to attend her birth. Lauren Mishcon

    I did a birth on my birthday once 20 hours, wet through from supporting the mama in a tiny en suite on the DU. She wasn’t even my client – I was a backup doula! Jo Rogers

    I missed my daughter’s birthday one year and another year was so tired after being awake for 38 hours I picked her up from school and fell asleep before she had finished opening her presents. Missed first three days of my summer holiday when my client went pass 43 weeks . Aimee Sri Laxmi Hamblyn

    These are all true stories. I hope this helps give a measure of how passionate we are about supporting our clients.

  • Why I wish I had hired a postnatal doula

    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 was, both personally and professionally (read about that here Ā and here)

    But my biggest regret is that I didn’t hire my birth doula as a postnatal doula.

    Today, these feelings were re-triggered by reading this article called self care with a newborn.

    I wish, and I have wished so many times that I could go back to my newborn mother self and tell her to hire my doula for postnatal support.

    I cannot change that, but at least I can try and help other mothers understand why it’s so worth it.

    You see when my son was born, I struggled massively with the changes having a newborn baby brought to my life.

    I went from being an independent, successful, corporate woman, at the peak of my career in science, to being at home, alone, all day, with a helpless and very needy infant.

    And nothing had prepared me for how challenging this would be.

    My son was one of those “velcro babies”. He wouldn’t be put down without screaming for the first 3 months of his life. Today, I can see how this was helpful, as it was instrumental in my becoming a babywearing instructor, but at the time it was so fucking hard! Not only did he cry every time I tried to put him down, but I also needed to be moving constantly whilst he was in the sling, otherwise he still cried.

    It was exhausting. I couldn’t rest, I couldn’t sit down to eat, I couldn’t look after myself.

    Helping him sleep took hours, and I paced and paced whilst longing to sit down and rest.

    After my husband had gone back to work, I longed for another adult to just take the baby away so I could shower or sleep without worrying about the baby crying. Or simply have my arms baby free for an hour or two, or to have some adult company during the day.

    I felt utterly lonely, because my social circle was at work from 9 to 5, and whilst I did eventually re-create a new mummyhood social circle, this took months, during which I felt miserable, at home all day or walking by myself in parks, feeling pangs of envy when I saw other mums hanging out together.

    I also spent weeks struggling to make my son fit within the constraints of what I thought I “ought to do” (pushing him in a pram which he hated instead of the sling he loved, trying to make him sleep on his own in a moses basket for hours without success etc). This just resulted in a lot of tears and frustration.

    When I look back (hindsight is such a wonderful thing isn’t it?), especially through the lens of my 13 years as a mother, combined with my 8 years as a doula, it’s easy to see that most of the problem stemmed from my being a control freak, from desperately trying to live my life like I did before I had a baby, from a loss of identity, and from a inability to make sense of the whole experience.

    I had a really hard time adjusting to motherhood, and those feelings had nowhere to go, because I wasn’t even able to articulate them and understand what I was going through.

    I also felt somewhat guilty that I wasn’t enjoying being alone with my baby, and that I wasn’t feeling “fulfilled” by motherhood.

    I didn’t know at the time, but there was an element of shame there.

    Now I know how much hiring my birth doula for just a few hours of postnatal support would have made a world of difference.

    Sadly at the time I felt I could not justify the expense.

    It felt selfish, and unjustifiable, somehow, to spend money on myself, especially when I had a much reduced maternity pay salary.

    Yet I bought tons of crap I didn’t need for my baby. That I felt was OK to spend money on. When I look back, all I feel is sadness for my newborn mother self about it. I wish I could go back and tell her.

    Because, when I look back at the cost of raising a child, over the course of the last 13 years, I really wish I had been able to see that spending a bit of money towards a few hours’ worth of postnatal support would have been SO worth it.

    If I had hired my doula as a postnatal doula, she would listened to me deeply, she would have reassured me that it was NORMAL not to enjoy every minute of being a mother.

    By actively listening to me, and holding the space for my thoughts and feelings to come out, she have been able to reflect back them back to me, and help me identify them and untangle the complex and conflicting emotions I was feeling.

    She would have helped me understand the delicate process of transition I was undergoing, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

    She would have empathised.

    She would have helped name and validate those emotions.

    She would have helped me understand why it was so hard, and helped me to not feel so guilty about it.

    She would have helped reframe those feelings of not being useful, of not having achieved anything with my day (and that I see so often in other mums).

    She would have encouraged me to rest more and not run around like a headless chicken trying to do all the chores I did before the baby was born.

    She would have explained the wisdom in postpartum rest traditions, and help me see how short changed we are with this in the Western world.

    She would have helped me see that things would get easier and not constantly stay in this unbearable intensity of early motherhood.

    She would have been someone I trusted to look after my baby whilst I slept, or had a much needed moment of me time.

    She would have prepared me something nice to eat, and held the baby whilst I ate it (whilst it was still hot).

    She would have sat down next to me during those endless feeds, and made me a drink and a snack and listened to me, making me feel like me and my feelings mattered.

    She would have helped reframe what normal newborn behaviour was, as opposed to the fear of “bad habits” our screwed up culture had instilled in me, and encouraged me to follow my instincts.

    She would have helped me find ways of managing my time and relax more.

    She would have signposted me to local mother groups, where I could have found other mums to hang out with a lot faster than it happened organically.

    She might even have given me a nurturing and much needed massage designed for new mums like closing the bones.

    In short, I know she would have helped transform my early postpartum weeks from a difficult and uncomfortable period of growth to one of understanding and acceptance.

    She would have helped the transition.

    I know it’s easy for me to say all this, because I’m a doula myself, and often I shy away from telling this to new mums, because I don’t want them to think I’m just doing it to tout my business.

    I just want you to have a better experience than I did.

    I want you to put your needs first, because you matter.

    Because trust me, I know what a difference it would have made.

  • 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 from being a scientist to becoming a doula and childbirth educator.

    Three years later, when Maddie ran the first ever Developing doulas course, she asked me to attend as a guinea pig.

    I absolutely loved the course, the course facilitators, and the amazing women I met.

    Fast forwards ten years andĀ  I’ve been a doula for nearly 7 years, a doula mentor for 2 years, and it feels right and fitting that I should start to facilitate Developing doulas courses myself.

    I’ve felt for myself the power of being supported unconditionally through one’s pregnancy and birth choices and I feel it has the power to change the world we live in. So it feels right, and important, to help more women embark on their journey to become a doula.

    Whilst I went into doulaing to help make the world a better place and to serve parents (and to help families have the same positive, supported experience I had), I’ve personally benefited from becoming a doula in ways that I could never have envisaged. It has been such an amazing journey of self discovery, and has given me such joy, such personal growth, and such incredible self belief.

    As I’m reflecting on this journey, I’m finding it quite hard to pinpoint exactly what is it about becoming a doula that had such a positive effect on me.

    I’ve found that it’s a multilayered combination of several factors.

    Firstly, supporting women through birth and the postpartum is incredibly rewarding. I’ve joked several times that when I was a scientist, I had many exciting moments, but I never cried tears of joy like I have many times since becoming a doula. Also as a scientist, I hoped that my research may lead to advances in medical care someday. With doulaing, the positive effects one has on families is immediately visible. On more occasions than I can count, I’ve been sitting in my car after a birth or a postnatal support session, and I’ve burst into tears of joy and gratitude. I feel that I am incredibly lucky to be able to do such a fulfilling job.

    Second, becoming a doula has broadened my mind beyond belief. When I was a scientist, I hung out all day with other scientists. Yes they were all different people, but they all operated within a similar mindset. As a doula I’ve met the most incredibly range of people, doing jobs I didn’t even know existed. Supporting families through such a vulnerable time as pregnancy and birth, the relationship we develop with our clients over the course of several weeks or months means that we get to know people really well. And what has amazed me the most, is, the longer I do this job, the more people keep amazing me. We are all so different, with different life stories and different needs. You start to realise that nothing is black and white, and just many different shades of grey. and that what’s right for one isn’t for another. Nothing exposes you to breadth of this difference as supporting women through birth.

    I have likened becoming a doula to taking the ā€˜red pillā€™ (as in the Matrix movie). Once you start doing this job, it opens your eyes, your heart and your mind beyond what you thought possible, in a way that I find hard to articulate with words, especially to people who are outside the doula world. You cannot unsee what you’ve seen.

    Everything in your life starts to change too, because what you learn is so opening and so deep, you cannot stop it from percolating to the rest of your life.

    Take questioning everything. Something that we discuss in depth during the doula course. The world, especially the medical maternity care system, isn’t as evidence based as you believe. Once you start digging into the evidence for that, and you realise it’s all a house of cards, you start questioning other aspects of medical care, you start questioning parenting, you start questioning education, the list goes on and on.

    Take unconditional support. This is the cornerstone of doulaing. We’re here to work alongside women and support their choices, and help them discover what’s right for them. Often we might be the first person in their life do to this for them. Just listening with no agenda. There is incredible power in doing this. Once you start doing that for clients, it also becomes a part of who you are. You judge people less, you ask open questions instead of making statements, you stop projecting your own beliefs on other. Your close ones, your family and friends benefit immensely from this. I am proud to say that becoming a doula has made me a better mother, and that I am raising kids who will take no shit from the system.

    Take becoming self employed. I don’t know if this applies to any self employment because I haven’t tried anything but doulaing, but since becoming self employed nearly 7 years ago, I’ve realised that I was pigeon holed without knowing it, in my previous job. Within science, there was a common, quite judgemental, and narrow minded way of thinking and an unspoken rule that if you didn’t know everything, you were incompetent. I used to feel very vulnerable after giving a talk at a conference, in case I didn’t know the answer to all the questions. Becoming a doula taught me that you don’t need to have all the answers, and that it’s ok to say “I don’t know, but I’m going to try and find out”. It’s incredibly liberating, and has built my self confidence no end.

    Take entering the most amazing community of women I’ve ever encountered. The doula world is almost entirely composed of women who are passionate about supporting women, and each other. It kicks the patriarchy in the teeth. My local doula community is simply the most amazing, non competitive, non judgmental, supportive community of awesome, kick-ass women I have ever entered. We lift each other up. We laugh and we cry with each other. So not only did I gain a job I adore, but I have also gained a local and UK wide community of women I love and admire. And, after many years of buying into the patriarchal model of competition between women, I’ve discovered the joys of sisterhood.

    Take all the opportunities for learning new skills that comes with this job. Since entering the world of doulaing I have attended countless study days on topics I didn’t even know existed before. Many of these I have enjoyed so much that I’ve honed my skills, and ended up teaching others. For an eternal student and knowledge freak like me, it’s incredibly exciting.

    Take the self esteem boost. It’s so good for the soul to follow your calling and do a job that you love. Beyond that, not having to know everything also led me to start believing I was good enough, so the effects on my sense of self (along with the incredible rewards of this job) have been very far reaching indeed.

    Take breaking the mold and becoming truly myself. Doulaing has allowed me to explore what I love doing and learning beyond the confines of what’s considered “ok” by society. I’m a scientist AND an energy worker, and it’s completely ok! When you spend your days encouraging others to trust their instincts, it rubs off! So the biggest gain for me as a person has been able to grow into who I really am, and embracing my weird quirks and blend of science and woo unashamedly. I feel I’ve really grown into the person I am meant to be. I no longer fit into a nice neat box and I love it.

    As Brene Brown says

    ” Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging, but often barriers to it. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

    Becoming a doula has been instrumental in my journey of self growth and self acceptance.

    These are all the reasons I’m grateful that I have become a doula. These are also the reasons I’ve become a doula course facilitator.

    I’m teaching my first course in North East London in May. Visit the Developing Doulas website to find out more.

    Would you like to join me in taking the red pill? What are you waiting for?

     

  • Confessions of a hippy scientist : 3 years on.

    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 I left my scientific career to become a doula (back in 2012), being at births and feeling the incredible powerful energy in the room, combined with hanging out with a lot of spiritual birthworkers, led me to want to develop my energy healing abilities further.

    Back in 2003 I had undergone Reiki Level 1 training. In 2015 I took it to level 2 then master teacher level.

    After training and starting to offer healing to people on a regular basis, I agonised over showing this side of myself to the world.

    Doula clients told me they’d picked me because of my scientific background, which wasn’t surprising as Cambridge is full of medics and scientists. They felt reassured by it and I understood that.

    I worried a lot about putting people off if I chose to show my woo underbelly.

    I even went as far as considering a separate website for my Reiki work!

    Luckily someone challenged me to “come out”, and I wrote the blog I mention above.

    It felt very vulnerable to publish it, yet the post only got amazing responses, mostly from people who felt the same as me and thanked for it. It helped others on their way to embracing their full selves.

    Something magical happened in my work too, as I started getting clients who were more aligned with my true self.

    Because you see, when you show your true self, it puts some people off, but these aren’t the people you want to work with.

    Instead, you start attracting people who are much more aligned with who you are.

    For instance, a birth client who had told me she didn’t want any hippy stuff, asked for several Reiki treatments after birth. When I asked her what had made her change her mind, she said “before the birth I didn’t get it, but now I do”, which was a complete reflection of my own journey.

    So where am I now 3 years after this “coming out” blog?

    First of all, I have now embraced who I am so much that I cannot believe that I used to feel the need to hide this side of myself.

    I still work with a lot of scientists and medics (I’m still in Cambridge after all), but somehow my alternative side is never an issue.

    I’m getting a lot more woo clients too, which I love. This year I have finally ticked my bucket list wish of drumming during a birth, and I have also been hired specifically by someone who wants me to drum at their birth. It feels very good and exciting.

    I’m also being hired to organise mother blessings and group closing the bones ceremonies, as opposed to just doing them for friends.

    I’m still a scientist, and always will be be. I love nothing more than providing clients with evidence based links, especially when those help them make truly informed decisions about their care, and challenge population based hospital policies.

    Last year, I spent several months reviewing the research on the aging of the placenta and wrote this blogĀ  mostly because I got fed up of seeing non scientific birthworkers friends being bamboozled by jargon, and to show that things aren’t quite a simple as the “experts” say.

    To write it I had to put my old scientist hat firmly back on and spend many hours reading the research. I realised I found doing this, that I found it tedious and dry. This is no longer who I am, and I’m really glad I’m not working in academia anymore. Today I’m able to unapologetically embrace who I am, and no longer feel that I need to know everything.

    As I write this, I realise that I already felt this way when I was a budding scientist, early during my PhD. I remember my supervisor implying that I had to know everything and that I was incompetent if I didn’t. What a load of tosh! Something in me already knew this wasn’t true. I also remember questioning the way scientific papers were written under the same rigid rules and not liking it. I found reading papers for the sake it really tedious even then. I guess I always was a bit of a maverick, and someone who questions everything.

    Between 2008 and 2012, as I trained for my diploma in antenatal education, I learnt about the way we learn, and it makes so much more sense to me. You simply cannot force knowledge into people, by pouring it into their heads.

    Interestingly, I feel that my scientific knowledge is now kept fresh and alive by the multitude of clients I supports and all their wide and varied needs. Because I love nothing more than finding scientific evidence for clients, I find myself reading avidly on their behalf, and the knowledge sticks because there is a positive and emotionally investment behind my looking for it.

    I’m still a hippy, in fact more than ever! I’ve carried on developing my more spiritual skills since I wrote the original blog. In 2017, made a shamanic drum at a very spiritual workshop, for the purpose of healing around pregnancy and birth. I then took a Reiki Drum training course shortly after that, and using my drum for healing and holding groups etc has become completely normal and natural to me. I’ve had two Reiki training upgrades. I have even stopped shying away from using my drum as standard in my closing the bones treatments (I used to give people the option to have it or not, now I just tell them it’s part of the treatment). Using Reiki treatment is part of my everyday life.

    What I’ve found has happened is my energy work offering, which started being a neat Reiki thing, has morphed into my own style of blended healing, which is completely intuitive, and doesn’t actually have a proper name or fit in a box, but it’s mine and I love it.

    Rather than offering energy work as a standalone I now weave it in and out of my birth and postnatal practise as and when feels appropriate.

    The call to embrace and develop my inner healer is extremely strong. It feels without a shadow of a doubt that this is where I’m headed.

    To make room for this I ended up dropping hats that no longer fitted me, that I felt I had outgrown. For instance I left my role as an NCT teacher.

    I’m also slowly letting go of my teaching of babywearing. I still love supporting parents using slings, but I dropped running a sling clinic and I’m also letting go to actively teaching babywearing peer supporter courses-because whilst I still enjoy it, it doesn’t fill my soul with joy the way facilitating more spiritual work like closing the bones does.

    The thing I love above all is blending my own cocktail of science and woo.

    I trained with Spinning babies since I wrote the blog, twice, and I use a combination of their techniques which I apply in a very scientific way, together with tuning in to what I feel and see happens energetically to the mother during labour. I have experienced true miracles in using this unusual mix.

    Perhaps the one thing that exemplifies this above all, is that I just finished developing an entirely new massage technique inspired by closing the bones, together with Teddy Brookes the osteopath. We called it the postnatal recovery massage. It combines massage, energy work and osteopathy. We teach it together, and the feedback we have received reflects exactly that. To quote Charlotte, a doula who attended our first training :

    ” Sophie and Teddy have taken all that is special about it and fused her energy-work approach with his osteopathic technique to create something extraordinary.”

    Openly embracing who I am with all my paradoxes and quirks has been the most liberating journey ever.

    I am a scientist but I am also an energy healer. I am proud of it. It’s what makes me unique.

    If being a doula has taught me one thing, itā€™s that we are ALL full of paradoxes and quirks and uniqueness.

    Nobody fits nicely into a neat little box.

    I want to support others in this journey of embracing themselves, and this is a massive reason being my recently becoming a doula course leader.

    When we celebrate rather than shame our uniqueness, this has tremendous power, both for ourselves and everybody around us.

  • What do you get when you hire a doula, or why she’s totally worth the money

    What do you get when you hire a doula, or why she’s totally worth the money

    This week I saw this meme.

    It made me want to write about what you get when you hire a doula.

    The birth/wedding spending is a very well known analogy in the birth world. Most people spend A LOT more time and money planning for their wedding day than they do for their birth.

    I’ve written about this before here.

    So why do I feel compelled to write about why doulas are worth the money?

    Because I keep hearing/reading stuff about the fact that doulas are expensive.

    This simply isn’t true.

    The fact that people are reluctant to invest much time and/or money is preparing for their birth is a reflection of the low value our culture places on motherhood, and of a lack of understanding of the impact that birth has on women, and on society as a whole, but this is a topic that deserves its own blog post.

    I’ve written recently about the value of a doula, but this time I’d like to explore and explain what you really get when you hire one and why it’s worth every penny.

    My friend Maddie McMahon also wrote a brilliant blog about doulas and money this week.

    And doula SallyAnn Beresford also wrote about budgeting for your birth.

    I’d like to correct some misconceptions about doula work and its worth.

    I think the biggest misconception is that you hire a doula to support you through the birth of your baby and that’s all that matters.

    Recently a colleague was asked how much she’d charge to only come to the birth, and do no antenatals.

    This has happened to me too and I had to explain it just doesn’t work like that.

    Much of the work we do is in the preparation, the getting to know you and the support and information we give prior to the birth.

    I saw another meme last week that summed it up very well “the power of a birth plan isn’t the actual plan. It’s the process of becoming educated about all your options”.

    It’s a big myth that there is no point writing a birth plan because birth is unpredictable (and I encourage all my clients to write 3 births plans (Read about this here)

    So back to what you get from your doula, and I’m in the thick of it at the moment as I’m supporting a woman pregnant with twins and one planning a VBAC , one having her first baby, one having her 2nd baby and one having her 3rd (they are not all due at the same time!).

    The minute you hire a doula, she’s completely dedicated to you.

    Whilst most of us have letters of agreement that cover a certain number of antenatal appointments, we also state that you get unlimited phone and email support from us.

    These days I’m in contact with my clients via email, text, phone and whatsapp groups.

    All this work can seem invisible because it’s not face to face, but I spend hours for each client beside the face to face meetings, researching information for them, on whichever topic they need information about.

    I send them various signposts, from online articles, examples of birth plans I’ve collected through the years, books etc. I contact other people for information when I’m facing a situation that is new to me (this happens all the time by the way as everybody is unique).

    I help them write their birth plans, reading through and making suggestions about things they haven’t thought about.

    I send them up to date hospital policies that I’ve managed to collect through my knowing of the right person to contact at the hospital.

    I lend them books and DVDs, slings and other pieces of equipment.

    I signpost them to the huge network of midwives, doctors, osteopaths, massage therapists, and other complementary practitioners that I trust and with whom I’ve built links over the years in my community.

    I suggest they meet with a different consultant or with the consultant midwife, and I often accompany them to the appointment.

    I’m truly passionate about this (and all the doulas I know are too), so I put absolutely no limit on the time I spend doing this.

    With more complex pregnancies, Ā it can mean an incredibly high number of hours.

    And of course I meet face to face with my clients at least twice antenatally (not including the first time we meet for an interview).

    I prepare extensively for these appointments, discussing what they want ahead of time and preparing the right props to take with me.

    I listen deeply to their wishes, their concerns and worries, and I try to provide the information that maximises the chances of them achieving these wishes.

    This is the antenatal prep.

    Then there is the on call period. Most of the time we go on call from 38 to 42 weeks pregnancy, or until the baby is born which can be longer than 42 weeks.

    This means that for up to a month (it’s pretty rate that it’s shorter than 2/3 weeks especially for first time mums, and I’ve been on call for 5 weeks in the past), we are on standby 24/7.

    We literally put our life on hold. We don’t go away more than an hour from our house. Most of us have young children ourselves so we have to make very complex childcare arrangements to be able to drop everything and come to your whenever labour starts (including at night). We can’t drink alcohol, even at a party. We can’t let our hair down. We tell all our other professional engagements that we’re on call and may need to cancel at short notice (“unless I’m at a birth” becomes a recurrent sentence).

    We pack clothes ready for the next day so we are ready to disappear in the middle of the night when needed. We need to be careful what we wear in case we have to hot foot it to the birth. We repack our doula bag, making sure everything we need is in there, and replenishing supplies.

    Our phones are glued to us 24/7, and placed on the bedside table at night (And we’re always making sure the battery is charged).

    We sleep less well (we experience a level of heightened alertness and often wake up at night to check our phone in case we missed a text/call from you). We always make sure we are reachable, are paranoid about phone reception which something means giving someone else’s landline just in case (some clients live in areas with poor mobile reception).

    Our clients are always on our mind. We care deeply for you at this vulnerable time.

    We know that we might need to come to you very quickly when labour starts. We never know when.

    We have to remind our partners of the fact that we may disappear in the night or day, and make sure they know what’s happening with the kids etc.

    Our partners and children find the unpredictability difficult to handle ,especially as they don’t know how long we’ll be gone for.

    We keep telling our friends and family : if my client calls I’ll need to go. I choose to take the car instead of the bus when going to town, incurring extra parking charges, because I want to be as quick as possible in case I get called, plus my doula bag is usually in the car and it’s really big. I have to remind my kids when we go to the park or the cinema, remind my husband when we go for a rare meal out. Several times I have had to tell my choir leader at the beginning of a concert that if I may need to disappear.

    We miss study days and conferences we have paid for because we don’t feel safe going that little bit further away in case labour happens during that time.

    It takes a very special kind of person to cope with this level of unpredictability and low level tension on a constant basis. It gets easier as you become more experienced but it never quite get to the state when you feel completely relaxed.

    The on call period is up to 30 days, 24h a day. This can mean a total of 730h or more. So if you think that my birth package starts atĀ  Ā£950, one third of which is for the on call period, that’s 316 divided by 730, which amounts to 43p per hour. Not exactly minimum wage hey?

    Then there is the birth itself.

    I’ve been a doula for 6 years and the shortest birth I attended was about 3h long (I always stay a few hours after the birth to make sure mother and baby are ok and help with establishing feeding etc, so I was there for 6h). The longest was 4 days. The average was 21h.

    We spend hours supporting you and your partner, holding you, massaging you or whatever other comfort method helps at the time, managing on very little sleep and food.

    We help you navigate unexpected curve balls. We stay strong. We cheer you on.

    We have a firm commitment to the families with support and we’re not going anywhere until the baby has been born.

    When we get home after a birth, we often take days to recover.

    Then there is the post birth support. I offer a minimum of one postnatal visit and unlimited phone and email support for 6 weeks after the birth. I also offer standalone postnatal support for an hourly rate of Ā£25.

    Some parents take to parenthood like a duck to water and require very little support from us. The shortest postnatal job I’ve done was a one-off visit of 3h. The longest one was 2 years.

    Some parents have very complex situations to deal with and this can mean hours of support.

    I recently supported a new mother of premature twins so she could achieve her goals of breastfeeding them and this took much hard work, sweat and heartache, with incredibly rewarding results at the end.

    Some parents struggle with feeding, with adjusting to being parents, with sleepless nights, with conflict with their partner, with being a single parent, with complex medical situations and more.

    We’re there for them and we don’t go anywhere until we have helped them achieve their goals. We move heaven and earth, we reach out to other knowledgeable people, we spend hours talking and researching topics.

    I haven’t written this to moan about it all and I sincerely hope it doesn’t come across this way.

    I do this because it’s all worthwhile and I don’t resent it.

    I do this because it’s a calling and because I care about birth, and about women.

    But I just want you to know what it means to be a doula, and how challenging it can be at times.

    I want you to know that when you hire a doula, she puts her life aside for you for weeks or even months at a time.

    Because you are worth it.

    And your doula is worth it too.

  • On being an independent doula and a proud member of Doula UK

    On being an independent doula and a proud member of Doula UK

    I wrote a blog about what it means to me to be a member of Doula UK

    https://doula.org.uk/on-being-an-independent-doula-and-a-proud-member-of-doula-uk/

  • What’s in your doula bag, and does it really matter?

    What’s in your doula bag, and does it really matter?

    When I started working as a doula nearly 6 years ago, I spent much time researching what other doulas had in their bags.

    I loved looking at blogs and getting ideas from other more experienced doulas.

    I discovered and bought much stuff, from honey straws to massage tools.

    Interestingly, many more experienced doulas told me that my bag would get smaller as I got more experienced. I didn’t question that, they had been doulaing for longer than I had, so they must have been right.

    I started with a smallish tote type bag (pictured above).

    But this soon became too small, and the tote bag is now my antenatal appointment and postnatal doula bag.

    I also had a period of having a spare sports type bag in the car with change of clothes, and heavy stuff I could only use at homebirths, like microwaveable rice bags.

    I moved on to using a rucksack.

    The problem with the rucksack is that, whilst it was roomy, getting stuff from the bottom meant emptying the whole bag. This annoyed me.

    When my friend Maddie raved about her skip hop twin duo bag, I got myself one off eBay too and tried that for size.

    But I still needed something bigger, because I couldn’t close the skip hop bag once I had put all my stuff in it.

    Also, I like things to be organised in different compartments and being easily accessible and organised.

    So last year, when I bought myself a new gym back called a Workplay bag (aptly named “the goddess” bag!), I realised it would work very well as a doula bag. Workplay bags are expensive but I got mine second hand on eBay for about Ā£20.

    It’s great, there is plenty of room and it’s very organised and easy to find stuff. The only problem is that the bag is very heavy when full, and I cannot carry it on my back and still have my hands free for my client mid contraction when we walk from the car part to the hospital. I’m now toying with the idea of buying something on wheels, I’ve been ogling a midwife friend’s new Zuca bag…

    Interestingly because my bag has so much kit, I’ve shied away from sharing it online over the last couple of years, because so many doulas say they take almost nothing with them at a birth, that I felt that I was somewhat a lesser doula for having so much kit, that there was something wrong with me.

    So I’m super grateful for doula Staci Silvan to having stated that she likes to bring a lot of kit in her bag, and to Zara de Candole, for saying that she should embrace all the kinds of doulas, the ones who just bring themselves, and the ones who bring everything but the kitchen sink.

    It’s interesting how most of us can’t help but judge and compare ourselves to others, instead of seeing the beauty in the amazing variety of uniqueness each one of us brings.

    So I’ve decided to embrace the fact that I am a “hoarder” kind of doula, and not be ashamed of my enormous doula bag.

    I’m coming out as a big doula bag doula šŸ˜‰

    The thing is, I am also a fully paid up member of the “doulaing is about being not doing ” school.

    I know that the most important thing I bring to the table is me, and how I hold the space for the woman during her labour and birth (which is also why a large chunk of the contents of my bag are actually designed to keep me going rather than for my client)

    Most of the time I don’t take much stuff out of my bag at all. But I’m the kind of person who would hate not having something available if I knew it could help.

    I really want to emphasise the fact that, (especially as I’m a doula mentor and the last thing I want is my mentees to think that they need to have everything that in my bag-it’s not about me), I am not writing this post to encourage you to do it like me, or to say that my doula bag contains the perfect kit.

    But I often see posts from new doulas asking what people have in their bags, and I know how useful it was for me when I started, so I want to pay it forward, because I think it’s really helpful to have it in a link that’s easy to find rather than trawl through stuff on facebook.

    Just remember: This is my kit. It fits me. This isn’t necessarily the kit that is right for you.

    I would like to encourage you to look at my very large amount of kit, and and thing to yourself: do I need this shit? Do I want all this stuff in my bag?

    You may want to experiment and try it for size, and when you realise that you like something, then by all means keep it, but also feel free to dump it when you realise it’s not working for you.

    Heck less than a week ago I went to a birth with only my handbag-it was for an elective cesarean and I knew it was likely to be short and that I wouldn’t need my labour comfort bits and bobs.

    Let’s embrace variety and celebrate all doulas, the ones who go to births with just their handbag, and the ones who go to birth with a ginormous bag, and everybody else in between!

    The right doula bag is the one that is right for you!

    Here is my current birth bag. I know it’s big but I love it!

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Here are some other doulas who favour big bags

     

    Staci Sylvan who is another member of the big bag club, sporting her doula bag, which a Stanley tool bag

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Zara de Candole another fan of big doula bags

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    And for balance, here are some examples of doulas who preferĀ  small bags!

     

    Eva Bay and her basket (Cards, rebozo, notebook, diary, birth beadsĀ and water)

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Mars Lord and her tote bag

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Amber Strong and her handbag style doula bag (containsĀ snacks, lip balm, essential oils and homeopathic kit, straws and honey. For me – clean underwear, deodorant, mints, charger and purse)

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    And if you’d like to know what inside my huge bag here are some pics

    My antenatal/postnatal bag (pictured at the top of this blog) contains a small pelvis and baby, a beaded birth line and client notebook (for antenatals), a small knitted boob, baby and syringe, to explain hand expressing/positioning, some slippers (I hate getting cold feet), and most importantly, some good quality, dark chocolate (I once got caught up without chocolate at a postnatal job, mum was taking a nap, baby was asleep in the sling (I usually chuck a stretchy wrap in my bag too), I’d done what I needed to do and was having a cup of tea and there was NO chocolate-never again).

     

     

    The snack section. It’s all for me, so I can keep going when I am at a long birth and can’t get away. Hospitals are a very dehydrating environment so I have a Hydaway collapsible silicone water bottle. I’ve tried plastic water bottles in the water and didn’t like the taste they gave to water. It’s much more convenient than the horrible polystyrene cups from the hospital, and also helps in not creating more waste. I usually add some squash or some sports tablets in the water too, to encourage more drinking (has to be balanced against not needing to pee every 5 min though) I also have a Pokito silicone collapsible coffee cup, for pretty much the same reasons I highlighted re water. Good coffee is important to me (hospitals usually only have the most vile cheap brown powder instant coffee) and I love the coffee “teabags” from Taylors of Harrogate. I have some cereal bars, some nuts, and sweets and other high calorie, nutrient dense stuff.

    The “therapy” section of my bag. Helios homeopathy childbirth kit, rescue remedy pastilles, essential oils in a tiny little keyring pouch (I take lavender, clary sage, peppermint, frankincense, and Katseye blend 10 and 1) , sports tablets, earplugs and eye mask, washcloths, honey straws, various smelly sprays and roller balls and crystals and amulets (mostly for me), and a homemade poo-pourri (a small, essential oil based product to spray onto the toilet because you do a poo-so if your client goes in straight after you it doesn’t stink), and some disposable gloves just in case. The little pouch on the top left had toiletries for me, toothbrush and toothpaste etc.

     

     

     

    The birth pool kit: plastic mirror, thermometer, collapsible jug to pour warm water on the mother’s back, torch, and a wet bag.

     

     

     

     

    The comfort measures section: wheat bag, birth ball pump, portable air conditioning unit, fairy lights, massage balls (got mine really cheap in Tiger), small hot water bottle, portable essential oil diffuser.

     

     

     

     

    The spare clothes section: tshirt, knickers, socks, leggings, swimsuit (in case I need to go in the pool with mum)

     

     

     

     

     

    The comfort/rebozo section: 2 rebozos (you can buy some here), one blanket and one poncho (for when both me and mum or dad feels chilly in the middle of the night, I once lent both my poncho and blanket to cold midwives at a homebirth, and wrapped myself with my rebozo), one cooling towel for when mum feels too hot, a couple of inflatable neck travel pillows (handy for a labour nap for me or the partner, especially in hospital)

     

     

     

     

    A shewee. Sometimes the labouring mother loves to labour on the toilet. If you’re in a flat this might be a problem for the doula, hence this handy piece of kit (I have not had to use it yet)

     

     

     

     

    The book section-speaks for itself

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    And I also always take two more things with me at a birth: when I go on call, I bake and then freeze a groaning cake for my client, and I also freeze myself a sandwich made with something that won’t perish quickly at room temperature (like cured ham and cheese). I take these with me when I get the call (the sandwich is for me). Once the baby has been born I share the cake between the parents and the midwives.

    Update November 2018: I finally got a bag on wheels as my big gym bag was getting too heavy to carry comfortably. It’s a Santoro wheelable craft tote.