Holistic Birth Doula Support

What does holistic birth doula support look like?

When we meet, sometimes we will take walks, share meals, sit in your home, or a coffee shop. I would love to get to know you and your family deeply, so that I may know how to best support you all during your birthing time and with your new baby. I welcome partners to any of the prenatal gatherings, and require them to attend at least one.

I will be on call for your labor and birth starting at 36 weeks and present throughout your entire labor and birth (except for inductions, in which I might not arrive until you express a need for in-person support). If giving birth at home, I will stay with you in the immediate postpartum to cook your family a nourishing meal and get everyone settled with your new baby. If giving birth in the birth center or hospital, I will stay for about 2 hours until you are feeling settled on the MotherBaby floor or have had a meal postpartum. I am happy to pick up some food post-birth and deliver it to you and your partner.

I enjoy practicing photography and I am happy to include photography (no additional charge) during your labor and birth as a way of preserving the memory.

Birth Doula Package:

Intention: This package is a basic birth doula package where I will support you through pregnancy and into the postpartum, and will be present for your labor and birth. In this way, you will be witnessed and supported in your pregnancy, birth process, and transformation into motherhood (or into another layer of it).

Includes:

Access to 24/7 communications via phone during pregnancy to shoot me a text or talk on the phone about what is going on with your body or what is coming up for you in your process of being pregnant. This can include seeking advice for common pregnancy symptoms and complaints, curiosities about herbal remedies, having questions about OB/midwife tests and interventions, sharing exciting or challenging life updates or anything else!
3-4 prenatal gatherings (about 2 hours) where we will dive deep into dreams about your birth and growing family, addressing and sitting with fears, birth and postpartum planning sessions, and a crash course on physiologic birth education and fourth trimester preparation.
Attendance at your birth from labor to immediate postpartum to provide hands-on physical comfort measures, emotional support, information to assist your decision-making and advocacy when in the hospital. This support includes making sure you have a nourishing meal after Baby has arrived and you and your partner are able to settle in with your newborn and get some rest.
2 postpartum visits (about 2 hours) to debrief your birth, address any questions and needs with your postpartum body or baby, help meal prep, house tend, and make a plan as to how you can receive optimum postpartum support from your family and community.
Access to 24/7 communications via phone for 1 month postpartum. Maybe you want a second opinion on a normal newborn rash, the consistency of baby’s poop, advice about your breastfeeding latch, or to troubleshoot some co-sleeping arrangements. For the first month postpartum, so much is new and so much is normal! I’m here to walk with you and help answer questions, educate, and give advice on whatever comes up.

Investment: $2,400

I allow my offerings to organically shift and adapt to fit the needs of the mother and the requirements and goals of the individual family.

I require a 25% non-refundable deposit upon hiring and ask that I am paid in full by 36 weeks. Please see my note on the financial investment below for more info on all the money things.

Sibling Support

I also offer Sibling Doula Support for families choosing to birth in the hospital and who cannot take their other children with them. I am on call for your labor and birth similar to a birth doula, and arrive at your house to stay with your other children when you leave for the hospital. I will stay with you kids until you return back home, typically 36-72 hours after the birth.

As a Sibling Doula, I tend to your children as you would: tending to morning and bedtime routines, cooking them meals (and prepping you postpartum meals), driving them to school or playdates, light house keeping and cleaning, and taking them to visit you and your new baby at the hospital when you're allowed visitors.

Please contact me to inquire about the financial investment for sibling doula services.

In-Home Postpartum Care

My approach to postpartum support:

My postpartum care offerings are different from a typical postpartum doula. Although I am trained as a traditional postpartum doula, I am also a student of Rachelle Garcia Seliga as an INNATE Postpartum Care Certified Practitioner and passionate about centering and nurturing mothers in the postpartum time. In addition to my postpartum doula role which includes birth story processing, meal preparation, breastfeeding support, sibling integration, newborn care and intuitive home tending, and more, I also fully understand what is required physiologically and psychologically to care for new mothers in their immediate postpartum time. I nurture and educate women as they follow the map of our physiological design to postpartum wellness This includes an extended resting period, specific nourishing foods, restorative bodywork, warmth, and community support. These five pillars of postpartum care are foundational to a woman’s healing and wellbeing for both the immediate postpartum time and for the rest of her life.

What does this look like?

Tending the Mother: Preparation of sitz baths, yoni steaming, nourishing herbal infusions, castor oil packs for breast and uterine healing, womb moxabustion treatment, warming oil breast and gentle womb massage.
Tending the Home: Intuitive home care such as laundry, dishes, and light cleaning.
Tending the Kitchen: Meal preparation. Lots of broths and soups. Prioritizing foods warm in nature, warm in temperature, easy to digest and nutrient dense.
Tending the Family: Birth story processing and debriefs, sibbling integration, support and education with newborn care.

Investment for In-Home Postpartum Care: $35-40 an hour

30 hour package: $1,000 (~$33/hour)
60 hour package: $1,800 ($30/hour)

Birth workers and postpartum care providers, along with most woman-centered jobs in “direct care” careers, are often under-compensated. Because the value of nourishing and supporting the new mother is overlooked in our county, birth and postpartum care workers are not always seen as a highly valued resource. In addition, the on-call schedule and giving nature of this work creates a role with a high burnout rate. My intention with my rates is to create a sustainable financial position for myself to continue my heart’s work for years to come. I have created the prices and packages below to reflect my education, training and experience.

I also recognize that our country has a long way to go before this type of support can be attainable to all families. My dream is for people to create and recover communities that can hold, witness and nourish new mothers and families in the ways they need, and deserve. Until then, I do not want money to be a deterrent to receiving support. Please reach out to inquire about sliding scale rates and payment plan options, and know I am always open to partial trades.

I am more than happy to help plan how we can resource your family with the community to get the care you need and deserve. Please inquire about my free resource guide on how to ask family and friends to donate to a postpartum fund and ideas on how to reallocate funds going elsewhere to doula and postpartum care instead.

Closing of the Bones

Receiving this teaching:

I first received the knowledge of this ceremony as a gift from indiginous midwives I studied under in Cotacachi, Ecuador in 2019. I was invited to attend a traditional Closing of the Bones ceremony in a postpartum mother’s home, and then brought back to the midwife’s home to practice. In Ecuador, they use a “manta” to wrap the hips and pelvis tight after birth. They believe this brings the expanded energy that was lost in the birth process back into the body. In this tradition, the wrap and tie is done by the midwife and left on for a couple days until the next postpartum home visit.
When I studied under Rachelle Garcia-Seliga, I learned the ceremony a bit differently from the Mexican culture and discovered a similar version exists in traditional Russian culture as well. This ceremony uses a traditional Mexican “rebozo,” a long scarf-like cloth very similar to the manta, and utilizes 7 different wraps on the body, as well as a spinal extension from a tie on the feet.

What does this include?

The physical wrapping and ceremony (with nursing breaks throughout)
Warming oil womb massage
Castor oil pack treatment for womb (or breasts)
An herbal tea ceremony
An opportunity for birth story sharing and processing
A nourishing meal for you and your family (either brought already prepared
by me or cooked in your home)
Some time spent tending to any pressing needs of your home and family
(cleaning dishes, sweeping, folding laundry, holding the baby so you can enjoy
a leisurely shower, walking the dog, etc.)
An opportunity to ask any questions about your new postpartum body, baby,
or breastfeeding

Benefits:

Closing up the pelvis after birth, both physically and energetically
Facilitating healing to the abdominal walls, fascia and ligaments of the pelvis
A gratitude practice of the body of the mother, and reflecting on the power
used to birth the baby
A ceremony to honor closure of anything that needs to be recognized, as well as honoring the rites of passage into motherhood with the death of the maiden

For more information on the history and benefits, please read this article by my teacher and mentor, Rachelle Garcia-Seliga: https://www.innatetraditions.com/blog/Closing-of-the-bones-rebozo