I am the founder of Birth Coach Method and am celebrating 20 years of leadership in the field of childbirth support. Throughout my career, I have been honored to provide doula support and teach childbirth ed. classes to hundreds of expectant couples, as well as to direct two birth resource centers. I am also a doula leader in my community in the South Bay area of Silicon Valley in California.
As birth support professionals, we often speak about empowering clients, but what does that mean? At the heart of birth empowerment is one crucial quality: agency — having the tools, voice, and internal permission to take the lead in your journey. It’s knowing you have the power to shape your perinatal experiences — and using it.
Supporting clients in developing their sense of agency as a Perinatal Coach doesn’t just serve them — it also transforms your professional experience. Working with clients who have a strong sense of agency can be one of the most rewarding and sustainable aspects of birth work. Let’s explore your wins.
In 2006, after a decade as a labor doula and while training as a transformational life coach, I realized that transformative perinatal coaching must become the foundation of practical doula work. Coaching strategies, when integrated into birth support, were a game-changer. This insight became the cornerstone of my career. I developed a new framework that’s helped many doulas—myself included—find more impact, satisfaction, and income. Now I invite all birth professionals to learn the difference between being a traditional labor coach and a Transformational Perinatal Coach.
Birth support professionals have mastered somatic work, as they naturally attune to the body’s wisdom when supporting expectant individuals and new parents. Through hands-on comfort measures like massage and acupressure, breath awareness, guided movement, and voice activation, I’ve helped my doula clients navigate the physical and emotional sensations of the perinatal journey. Whether using positioning, grounding exercises, or mindful touch, birth professionals integrate somatic practices into their care, fostering safety, trust, and empowerment.
So, it’s no surprise that many hesitate when I encourage them to shift from long hours of hands-on support to perinatal coaching conversations. It can feel revolutionary—and even intimidating—to imagine stepping away from the familiar, deeply embodied skills they’ve honed. Yet, this shift doesn’t mean abandoning somatic wisdom; instead, it’s about transforming how we use it, allowing for a deeper impact while reducing professional fatigue and burnout.
In the ever-evolving field of birth work, we are no strangers to passionate discussions, deep introspection, and the pursuit of justice. However, recently, identity politics has taken over doulas’ discussions, threatening to divide us and break doulas’ sisterhood. A post I recently read in an active doulas group has received tens of ‘likes’ and sympathizing comments, caught my attention:
“Doula’s work has been saturated with white supremacy, colonialism, capitalism, and cultural appropriation. The sacredness of this work is being lost right before our eyes.”
Empowerment lies at the heart of birth professionals’ work and is one of the primary goals in supporting expectant and new parents. Empowering means instilling confidence, fostering autonomy, and equipping individuals with the tools to make decisions about their birthing and parenting experiences. Empowering expectant and new parents is about letting them feel seen, heard, and engaged—trusting they have the knowledge, strength, and autonomy to navigate the challenges of childbirth and early parenthood. However, sometimes empowerment misses the mark and bears pitfalls. Empowerment takes more than encouraging and informing; it’s about cultivating internal authority and ownership. That’s precisely what Transformational Birth Support Coaching helps individuals undergoing childbearing feel.
Childbirth and postpartum are transformative experiences that reshape identities, relationships, and life perspectives in ways that statistics alone cannot convey. The journey of childbirth is not merely a clinical event; it is a deeply personal and transformative experience for parents, particularly for mothers. When birth support professionals, such as childbirth educators, prenatal yoga teachers, and doulas, fail to address these transformative aspects during our prenatal and postpartum encounters, we risk undermining our clients’ birth experiences. However, when we conduct a series of prenatal and postpartum coaching sessions, we bring these aspects to the surface and help individuals win the inner game of childbearing: overcome self-doubt, undo perspectives and limiting beliefs that aren’t leading to their desired positive expereinces.
The Inner Game of Childbearing
I mourn the loss of personal time.
I’m heartbroken by the loss of career opportunities.
I’m in pain over losing old social connections with those not entering parenthood.
I’m bummed about losing my pre-pregnancy figure and physical autonomy.
I’m afraid of what’s going to happen to our sex life and intimacy
Pregnancy and childbirth are incredibly transformative experiences. Unfortunately, our culture has reduced the conversation about this utmost transformation to one topic: labor pain. Whether on social media, in moms’ groups, or on the playground, individuals undergoing their childbearing years’ discussions focus solely on fear and coping with labor pain. This narrow focus can make them preoccupied with deciding whether to take an epidural. It doesn’t help much that their guides, birth support professionals, also tend to distinguish between “Natural/Unmedicated Birth” and “Medicated Birth.” The first option is often idealized, whereas the latter is viewed less favorably. These common attitudes can result in birth givers feeling negative emotions such as disappointment or failure if they choose to take an epidural.Since the decision to use pain relief during labor is a personal choice that has emotional and social implications, I suggest helping expectant individuals to navigate this “Epidural Dilemma” with transformational prenatal coaching,
The cornerstone of modern birth support has been promoting informed decision-making to empower expectant individuals and new parents. Birth workers have emphasized the importance of informed decision-making in childbirth to increase care safety and patient autonomy. The assumption has been that increasing knowledge is the key to clients’ empowerment. However, challenging this strategy reveals a more nuanced understanding of empowerment when supporting birth and postpartum clients.
Could our strategy be counterproductive, leading to disempowering expectant and new parents? I’m willing to take the risk to suggest this provocative idea for the chance to redirect birth workers to adopt a more impactful and empowering strategy.
Matrescence (pronounced ma tres ens) is a term referring to a transformative period of identity-shifting experienced by a woman during her transition into motherhood. “The psychological birth of a mother, similar to adolescence, involves hormonal and identity shifting.
Transformation is a change from which there is no going back. When transforming, our everyday strategies and behavior patterns must be revisited and adjusted to to facilitate a smooth and empowering transformation. This simple observation is the origin of the Transformational Birth Support Coaching framework.
There’s no turning back from parenthood. It’s a transformation from being someone’s child to being someone’s parent, a change that shapes the rest of your life. It is becoming the designated adult accountable for someone else’s life. For first-time birth givers, this means transforming from someone who has been given life to someone who is giving life, which involves a physical transformation of the body, mind, and social status. This profound transformation is well described by the term “Matrescence.”
Throughout history, black women have suffered from medical exploitation, neglect, and mistreatment during childbirth. This has left a long-lasting impact on contemporary healthcare disparities, resulting in higher rates of maternal and newborn mortality and complications among black birthing individuals. Educational initiatives have been taken to address this situation within birth support. These initiatives rely on two primary strategies – acknowledgment and education. With this article, you’ll discover the power of transformational prenatal coaching in empowering black birthgivers and tackling the root cause of the situation – authoritative relationships.
