What is a doula?
Dona.org definition:
a trained professional who provides continuous physical, emotional and informational support to their client before, during and shortly after childbirth to help them achieve the healthiest, most satisfying experience possible.
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Countless scientific trials examining doula care demonstrate remarkably improved physical and psychological outcomes for both pregnant, birthing, and postpartum people and their baby. Doulas have a positive impact on the well-being of the entire family.
My Process
Nurturing Care
As an experienced Doula, my goal is to give you and your family the attention and knowledge you need to make informed decisions about your pregnancy and labor.
I started doula work 10 years ago and consider myself blessed to have found such a fulfilling career. I love working with expectant parents to help them navigate the birth and labor process. I look at each new birth as a unique experience and in return I provide mothers with the encouragement and motivation they need.
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I have supported over 250 families as they welcomed their babies into this world. I have experience with unmedicated and medicated vaginal birth, planned and unplanned cesarean sections, successful VBAC's, and variations of all of the above.
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My goals for your birth are for you to feel supported, heard, and empowered. Every birthing person deserves to feel safe and cared for through labor and delivery. Your birth story is something you will recall for years to come and I hope that you can tell your story with pride in yourself and an admiration for your care team.
Training & Skills
Certified Doula
DONA International
2013
The Birth Doula Certification curriculum is designed to cultivate well-rounded doulas who are prepared to provide excellent doula support! Training includes: participation in a DONA approved doula workshop, supplementary text reading from our reading list, training in lactation, newborn feeding, and basic childbirth education, and hands-on support with clients.
HypnoBirthing® Workshop
HypnoBirthing®
2014
HypnoBirthing® is as much a philosophy of birth as it is a technique for achieving a satisfying, relaxing, and stress-free birth.
This amazing program teaches you the art and joy of supporting birth in a more comfortable manner. You will learn how to encourage your patients own natural relaxant, and therefore lessen, or eliminate, discomfort and the need for medical intervention. A doula trained in HypnoBirthing® can help her patients, who have also taken the HypnoBirthing® classes and are properly prepared for childbirth, through self-hypnosis and special breathing visualization techniques, HypnoBirthing teaches you to release fear and to trust your body’s ability to birth instinctively.
TENS & Acupressure Workshop
Dr. Kristine Tohtz
2016
Curriculum included understanding pain – what is it, how does it work and how it manifests in labor, T.E.N.S. unit - what are they and how do they work, uses and contraindications, settings and electrode placement, and Acupressure - theory, uses and contraindications, and how to locate points.
Spinning Babies® Workshop
Spinning Babies®
2016
Spinning Babies® asks a new question, “Where’s Baby?” One simple question leads to profound solutions. The better we understand the answer to this question the better our response to long, painful labors, fetal malposition (posterior, asynclitic, etc.) or labor dystocia. We believe baby’s position is a clue to the state of the anatomy. Working with physiology and new birth positions is how we “make room for baby.” Midwives, nurses, doctors frequently say they are in the Operating Room less often.