Tag: doula profession

Matrescence: Identity-Shifting Transformation

Matrescence (pronounced ma tres ens) refers 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.” 

The definition of Transformation is simple: a change from which there is no going back. This simplicity is the origin of the Transformational birth support coaching approach, which invites doulas and all other birth workers to gain transformative power and integrate it into their practice.

There is no going back from becoming a parent. It means transforming from being someone’s child to someone’s parent.
Becoming the designated adult accountable for someone else’s life. For birth givers, it means transforming from someone who has been given life to someone who is giving life, which involves a physical transformation of the body, which is well described by the term “Matrescence.”

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Birth Support Coaching in Times of Political Unrest

Birth Support professionals are committed to providing essential care and support to pregnant individuals and new parents, helping them navigate the challenges of bringing new life into the world. Pregnancy and postpartum are times of heightened emotions and vulnerability. Amid the current political unrest, the transparent fabric of hope and optimism that subconsciously led our clients to conceive has been interrupted. Staying hopeful and optimistic is less intuitive and demands intentional practice and awareness. At this time, birth support pros must help their clients to repair it.  We must expand our skills to facilitate something beyond proper maternal care; we need to coach to evoke hopefulness and optimism. Transformational Birth Support Coaching Strategies are the path to this type of support.

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Five Key Differences Between Informative and Transformative Birth Support

Have you considered leading a prenatal or postpartum support process through questioning instead of providing information?
Are you ready to consider making a difference in your clients’ lives by facilitating a transformation rather than delivering information? The post-pandemic era gave way to a profound transformation, reshaping every feature of our lives and society. Shouldn’t new practices for birth support be ushered in? Let me show you five key differences between informative and Transformative birth support.

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Doulas’ Success Inspirations for 2023

Every January, I experience a dramatic increase in aspiring doulas’ inquiries, requesting a 20-minute discovery session with me, and …registrations. As a result, every January, I feel called to inspire doulas to fulfill not only their passion but their professional success by claiming their thriving practice. As a doula trainer and coach, I’m committed to helping doulas elevate their status as a professional community and their individual financial and professional success. 

These are my three points of inspiration for doulas as we welcome 2023:

  • Lead your clients to achieve the results they hired you for
  • Use strategies that empower both you and your clients 
  • Establish a viable and successful practice by focusing primarily on verbal coaching prenatally and in the postpartum period.

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Three Keys to YOUR Thriving Doula Practice

As a doula trainer and leader of doulas’ communities on social media, I am convinced that the three most significant challenges to having your thriving doula practice are client enrollment, client engagement, and client empowerment. And if you’re open to adopting a new framework for birth support, I know I can help you achieve these three Es with ease. You can learn new strategies for Enrollment, Engagement, and Empowerment in my upcoming Three Keys to YOUR Thriving Birth Support Practice 2-day workshop.

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3-Steps to Cultivating Long-Term Relationships with YOUR Birth Clients

Finding and enrolling clients so I can have a stable monthly income” was voted the #1 source of exhaustion. In a poll I recently posted in The Aspiring and Thriving Doula FB group, 80% of the voters indicated client enrollment as their professional struggle. I could have guessed that since It has been my struggle in every capacity I have served, including a director of two birth resource centers.  Birth support has evolved as a field that consists of various short-term services provided by many different hands-on providers: Childbirth educators, birth doulas, postpartum doulas, breastfeeding consultants, and many others. From the point in which each of these professionals recruits a client, we serve them for a very short time – from 2 meetings to 3-4 months. 

The current situation has two main disadvantages:

  1. Client disadvantage: The abundance of short-term practitioners interferes with the continuity of care – one of the marks of high-quality care.
  2. Professional disadvantage: Having to constantly enroll clients, birth support pros are exposed to professional fatigue and face a potential income gap. 

Since long-term client relationships are the most crucial factor to growing any business, including your solo birth support practice, I’d like to suggest a business model to help cultivate them.

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Supporting Millennials throughout Pregnancy and Childbirth

Do you know your birth clients? Does your philosophy of care resonate with them? Do you employ the best strategies to support them? Rather than the optimal pathway to maternal care, Transformational Birth Coaching puts the birth client at the center of the support process. In doing so, we find that there is a generational gap that might be interrupting us in supporting millennials throughout pregnancy and birth. Halt! Take a deep breath…I’m not calling out on millennials. I raised two millennials myself and I love and admire them. I’m simply drawing attention to the generational gap between those who established the field of birth support – their attitudes, philosophy, lifestyle, and collective concepts of pregnancy and birth, and current birth givers. Can this generational gap mean that the philosophy, desired outcomes, and birth support strategies we practice do not resonate with current birth givers, or might not be a good fit? It might be the time to pivot.

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No Rescheduling, No Repeats, Oh My!

Photo by Chanhee Lee on Unsplash

Ever wondered why you’re super stressed when you commit to a birth client?

When I ask the community of Birth Coach Method’s doula students to elaborate on their stress level and its source, they usually begin talking about being on-call. I wholeheartedly agree that being on-call 24/7 when you are a career doula is super stressful. It’s been also reported by midwives that the unpredictability of childbirth – when will it begin and how will the process unfold, is one of the biggest hardships of the role. It keeps us on our toes – always having to arrange support for our families, always ready to cancel plans or miss family events. It’s messing up our vacations, and more. 

Another source of stress that often emerges in our community meetings, or personal mentorship sessions, is our accountability for clients’ birth experiences. While medical caregivers are held accountable for the outcomes, we are held accountable for the quality of the birth process.

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Transformational Postpartum Coaching: Promoting New Parents’ Self-Confidence and Well-Being

Just like prenatal coaching, transformational postpartum coaching shifts the focus from helping or informing to elevating new-parents’ performance level, self-confidence, and well-being.

Most of my writing has been dedicated to pregnancy and childbirth support. During the pandemic, I’ve been thinking a lot about the challenges of new parents or parents who have expanded their family recently. I want to share how transformational coaching during the parents’ postpartum period can enhance their experience.

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Revamping Labor Support with Transformational Coaching

You can learn to empower expectant individuals to perceive their own mindset and desires as the most valuable ‘data’ their providers should focus on, by doing so yourself! Learn to provide transformational birth support coaching, and you’ll get to see them conducting themselves brilliantly and with confidence throughout their birth experience, and celebrate themselves.

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