Certified! Yay!
Friends! I did it! I put in the hours and completed the assignments and came out of this quarantine a certified postpartum doula. I have been called to start this work for almost exactly a year now, but registered for this course in February as a birthday gift to myself, because I may be an education-aholic.
I have supported clients as a birth doula for 3 years now and will continue to take certain births that call to me, but I am ready to transition into supporting families at home.
I have noticed as a society we are spending more and more time preparing for birth, which has been long needed and is vital for the health of all of us. I feel and hope I have played a part in the shifting of the culture and how we respect the birthing process. I have learned so much through witnessing and holding space for births, I am forever grateful to have done this work. I have learned a ton about what families need, what babies need, and I believe I have the right idea to shift my focus into postpartum care.
“Is ours not a strange culture that focuses so much attention on childbirth—virtually all of it based on anxiety and fear—and so little on the crucial time after birth, when patterns are established that will affect the individual and the family for decades? ”
— SUZANNE ARMS
My focus and attention with this work is on the parents, supporting them adequately, nourishing their minds and spirits with advice and encouragement when needed, because I believe that will allow them to better care for their babies. As postpartum doulas we stand for change, and for the health of all new parents. We believe postpartum depression can be prevented, we believe you should not go through the newborn phase in a fog of exhaustion, we believe you should parent out of confidence and not stress.
I am ready to see where this work takes me! I am also ready to be around incredibly cute newborns for a living.
Stay tuned please to see how things develop, I promise to blog more about parenthood stories and write more informative articles about our reproductive world. If my posts encourage ONE family to hire a postpartum doula, I feel like that is enough.
