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Starting my new career as a doula – during Covid-19!

By Lorraine Pryce

I don’t think any of us can start talking about 2020 without saying “What a year!” It has certainly been a year like no other. For many it has changed our way of life: how we socialise, how we view and look after our mental health and, how we go to work.

And for me this year has been no different, except that at the start of it, before we had really heard of Covid-19, I flipped my own world upside down. I quit my job of 12 years and started a new career as a doula!

Since the birth of my daughter, way back in 2017, my priorities and outlook on life changed. I wanted to work at something that I truly believed in and that fed my soul, rather than taking from it. So, I trained to be a doula. The plan was to wait a few years until my daughter was at school and I was physically and financially able to really invest in myself and a new business, but when things at work started to affect my mental health; I quit.

This was back in January and by March 2020 I had thought of a business name, built my own website from scratch and I was ready to start supporting…Then lockdown hit. I can honestly say, as well as dealing with the unknown and the intensity of the pandemic, I shit myself. What had I done? Turning my back on a regular income for a world of self-employment and so many unknowns, was surely going to be the biggest mistake of my life?

Then as our new realities set in, I realised how much of a blessing it actually was to now be self-employed and be a master of my own destiny.

I could invest time in myself and my family without feeling pulled or pushed in someone else’s direction. It was still tough, the isolation and lack of normality meant everything felt hard but working on being a doula became a real pleasure. I was learning more than I had learnt in a long time which helped to feed my passion. I had space and time to really invest into what was going on in the birthing world. And a lot happened in maternity care this year and not for the better.

It became increasingly evident how an already broken system was starting to let more and more people down. With partners being excluded from the birth room, huge racial disparities in birth outcomes beginning to come to light and the considerations for people’s mental health coming bottom of the list, I felt impassioned. With all of this, along with the power of the Black Lives Matter movement, I felt compelled to use my voice. A voice that had been quiet for a very long time. I began to share evidence-based information about the dangerous disparities in maternal care, and, surprisingly, people wanted to know more. This was information that I naively believed everyone would already know. It made me realise just how much this pandemic would affect people expecting their babies and those that had just become parents.

I began having more and more conversations with other people in the birthing world about what was happening, as well as with family and friends. I think they were taken aback by my passion but also reflected the shock at what was going on, unseen by so many.

Off the back of one of these conversations a family friend mentioned someone who they thought might need some postnatal support. At this point, I had thought that the chances of being able to support anyone this year would be slim but I jumped at the chance to be able to help someone on their journey.

All my expectations for supporting someone went out of the window. How was I going to support someone when I couldn’t be with them? The beauty of this was that they didn’t know either but were willing to try because they just needed support. So, we made it work and both myself and the client were blown away by the connection we were able to make just through video calls, texts and emails (more about this client’s experience in part two of this blog).

The experience with this client made me realise that our support as doulas is very much about being there for the person. Our physical presence can be a huge bonus, especially during birth and postnatally, but actually the majority of the work that we do is holding space and listening to others. This is what this client valued the most, and it’s what helped me to continue to put myself out there as I knew that I could make it work.

After this experience it was like I had lifted a veil off myself and I gave myself permission to actually go out and do the work I had dreamed of doing. This may sound clichéd but I had finally found my calling.

Since then I have been able to work with clients in various ways. Some support has been solely remote, then I have done a mix of in-person and remote support, including socially distanced walks. I have also been able to provide in-person birth support where I was able to attend as the client’s birth partner. Each client’s needs have been different so I have been able to tailor my support to their personal needs.

This year has thrown up a level of vulnerability for birthing women and people that has gone largely unnoticed in the wider world. Their choices of care have become restricted and this has had lasting impacts on their experiences as they became parents again or for the first time. No one should feel like they have nowhere to turn during times of crisis, which has driven me to keep going even when it has been really tough.

I have been very fortunate to be able to support people this year and feel very grateful to the families that have asked me to walk alongside them.

Lorraine Pryce, mama2mama doula

Website: https://www.mama2mama.co.uk/

Nurturing Birth Doula Directory profile: https://nurturingbirthdirectory.com/doulas/united-kingdom/west-yorkshire/bradford/lorraine-pryce/#post_content

Working as a doula during Covid-19

Photograph of doula Nikki Mather

By Nikki Mather

Working as a birth and postnatal doula, providing support and information to parents, overcoming new challenges is familiar territory, and is part of the support we provide to families during the exciting journeys they are on during pregnancy, birth and beyond. This year, 2020, with a novel virus thrown into the mix, has been no exception. The only way in which support has been able to continue is by being adaptable. This is a challenge faced by doulas and all birth workers who are providing support during the pandemic.

Online and contact-free versions of doula support, antenatal classes and infant feeding support across the UK have been on offer in abundance. Some doulas have seen an increase in the range of services that they have been able to provide to families, and also the geographic areas they are supporting widened as services are moved online. Sadly, some doulas have had to stop working for the time being, for various reasons relating to the pandemic, including having children at home from school, or vulnerable family members needing extra care, or due to the visiting restrictions imposed from hospitals and birth centres (despite the 5th June update).

A great skill honed by many doulas in their work is adaptability. The possibilities are endless when you are able to look outside of the box and that has certainly been needed in abundance this year in order to continue supporting clients. The range of new versions of support services available to parents across the country is nothing short of amazing. Course providers have supported their cohorts to adapt to their new services, added information to their websites to explain why doula support is still beneficial to families and advertised and shared across social media.

My work involves several elements which complement each other across the maternity journey of families. They have all needed various adaptive measures to ensure that they are Covid safe and working alongside government guidance and legislation. For services where in-person collection is necessary, such as Placenta Remedies, was rapidly adapted to be safe and compliant with new legislation.

During the first lockdown I spent all of my time adapting my offerings and providing support online. In the beginning, people were a little reluctant to accept online services and this was tricky for some clients who were already working with me and who chose to wait and see if the in person sessions they had booked could resume in a couple of weeks. Zoom meetings became the normal way to communicate, developing packages of online support to ensure that parents make most use of the sessions and felt supported during this time of isolation. As the news rapidly changed and it became apparent that we would not be reunited before their babies were born, I helped families to adapt and change their own birth preferences to include support measures relating to COVID-19. 

As doulas, our work is mostly focused on person-centred services. Our support services are usually in a family’s own house, bespoke to their own journey, reflective, adaptive, tactile and full of the sharing of food and space. Focussing on the things we could do, rather than couldn’t, was paramount to ensuring parents still got as close as possible to the support we usually offered, albeit online. As maternity services reduced rapidly (one local maternity unit closed 4 days after lockdown to provide space for ICU), parents needed a source of support more than ever, and families who would not have usually have opted into private support engaged doula support.

I worked alongside families during the height of the first lockdown in different ways, adapted to each family’s individual needs. A fundamental Doula skill that I used daily, listening to the difficulties experienced in maternity during this time, was invaluable to new parents and those who were pregnant. Having somebody around as a continued source of support and to share their stories of joy or heartbreak was reassuring to parents – essentially having a ‘Doula in your pocket” to bounce ideas around with.

Antenatal sessions worked well online and for a time became the completely normal way to provide support. Having offered workshops online via Zoom pre-lockdown I was familiar with the system, which made this change relatively easy. I found that being adaptive and flexible was key to ensuring parents felt supported during these sessions. We built birth plans, we worked alongside midwives and obstetricians to support their birth choices, offering availability to be ‘on call’ whilst they were in labour in case they needed a reassuring voice, or support whilst making decisions about their care.

Many people can find Zoom sessions are exhausting and find it hard to engage. There are added layers of difficulty when offering support remotely that are taken for granted during in person meet ups. Reading people’s body language is hindered on a video call, which we so naturally adapt to and use unconsciously in real life. This made some sessions harder than others and I found myself adapting to each situation by asking different questions or offering information in different ways for optimum engagement.

Infant feeding support and postnatal support was surprisingly useful for parents when offered remotely. It meant they often did not wait long before a “visit” was booked and could get information and support quickly. General infant feeding support could still be provided using video links and clips or photographs. Support for complex situations which I was used to dealing with in person as an Infant Feeding Specialist became a new way of working to resolve challenges remotely.

Working in partnership alongside healthcare professionals was also key. Gaining permission to share information with health visitors and having scales dropped off on doorsteps where concerns were raised about a baby, or special  arrangements made for an in-person visit whilst they were suspended was especially important for some families. Families were able to reap the benefits of advocacy from the doula experience, and in some cases this was a crucial part of the care they subsequently received.

By the summer, garden visits with social distancing measures became the new way of seeing families, and postnatal and antenatal visits could resume as other ‘in-house’ services resumed. By October, another change to the guidance meant that we had to ‘work from home where possible’. Whilst disappointing, parents adapted again as I moved my antenatal services back to remote sessions, with only postnatal services being offered in person if they could not be offered remotely.

Self-isolation has been challenging; I had a client test positive resulting in me having to self-isolate for 2 weeks in October, and after 4 days ‘out’ of self-isolation I contracted COVID-19, leaving me extremely unwell for several weeks and unable to resume even online services until 3 weeks after, in a very limited capacity as I continue to regain the energy lost during the illness.

As we reach a new set of restrictions in the ever-changing landscape of living and birthing during a global pandemic, doula support continues to be an essential part of the support parents receive as they navigate the new challenges the pandemic has brought. Adapting the doula support to fit alongside the bigger picture is paramount to providing safe services. The doula support I now provide may change at a moment’s notice. To truly meet the individual requirements of my clients, including their wider support network and also support my own family’s needs is a balancing act that will continue to change and develop into 2021.

What experience do you need to be a doula?

Sophie Brigstocke photo

By Sophie Brigstocke

“What experience do I need to be a doula?” is one of the most common questions we are asked at Nurturing Birth.

“Do I need to have had children?” “Do I need to have a nursing or midwifery background?” “Do I need to have worked with families before?” “Do I need complementary skills/qualifications?” “Do I need to have experienced birth in a particular way?” “Do I need to have breastfed my babies?” “Do I need GCSE Maths?!”

The answer to all of those is no! Being a doula is not about the certificates you hold or whether you have been through pregnancy or childbirth yourself. Being a doula is about being with families as they navigate their journey into parenthood, and you can guarantee that someone else’s journey won’t be the same as yours. There may be parallels, you may see similarities, but what you experienced and felt won’t be the same.

Sometimes, and maybe this will surprise some, it is those who haven’t experienced pregnancy, birth and parenting who find it easiest to step in to the doula role. They aren’t having to process their own experiences in order to be clear to support others. They can be truly present as a doula without being hampered by the “I did it this way” thoughts. If we think about it, many obstetricians and midwives haven’t experienced birth – it doesn’t stop them being able to do their job competently and compassionately (in the majority of cases).

Unless you’ve spent your life in on a remote island with only trees for company, you are likely to have many of the necessary qualities to be a doula – an ability to relate to people, to listen, to nurture and care. What we are able to do on our doula training courses is help you to refine your natural doula qualities so that you go out in to the world full of compassion, with healthy boundaries, able to signpost and actively listen to your clients.

What more experience do you need to train to be a doula?

If you want to chat to us about becoming a doula then send us a message and we can call you back. We love to nurture doulas right from the start of the journey, so don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Mindful Breastfeeding – doulas supporting breastfeeding

By Anna Le Grange, of Mindful Breastfeeding.

I always get excited when I find myself working with doulas (I have a not-so secret ambition to become one myself one day!) There’s something so beautiful about the gift a doula gives to new and expectant families. What a wonderful time to be supporting families whilst they enter into parenthood for the first, second or even tenth time! All of that time you get to spend with them, getting to know them and supporting them with whatever it is they need, I know it is a gift for you too – it really does warm my heart. I know that you get asked a lot about breastfeeding both before and after the birth and this can certainly get complicated at times! I wanted to share with you that although nothing beats referring breastfeeding problems to a specialist, I have a whole host of simple tools that you can use to support families whilst they prepare and learn to breastfeed. These mindfulness and positivity-based tools are simple, yet very effective in supporting families at this time.

About 4 years ago, after becoming a lactation consultant, I wrote an online breastfeeding preparation course for expectant parents and included principles of relaxation, neuroscience, self-care and mindset into the course. It soon became popular, especially with other birth workers and health professionals, supporting stressed and worried families. Since May 2018 I have been teaching others to provide these techniques themselves in their own practice. One thing that is fed back to me time and time again is that they are bowled over at just what a difference such simple techniques can make, not just to the mental wellbeing of their clients but to how well breastfeeding goes too – even in the most challenging of circumstances. These are some of the things we focus on at The Mindful Breastfeeding School.

Infant Feeding Mindset
Everyone comes to parenthood with their own infant feeding story and their own expectations on babies and themselves. I help expectant and brand-new parents to uncover their feelings and beliefs. It’s often something that they haven’t discussed or even thought about. Journaling prompts can be a great way to get the conversation going. Once they have an awareness of their expectations and fears, we break them down into any negative thought patterns that they may be experiencing or even hiding away deep in their subconscious mind. Research shows that negative beliefs can have a big impact on how breastfeeding and early parenting goes. These negative thoughts that we all have tend to be on repeat, often without us knowing it. For expectant or new parents it might be:

“I don’t believe I’ll make enough milk for my baby”

“I’m terrified of feeding in public”

The good news is that we can use what is known about mindset and neuroplasticity to rewrite those negative thoughts into positive ones. Through writing personalised affirmations and then showing parents how to use them, infant feeding and early parenting mindset can soon become more positive, having a more positive effect on their experience.

Calming the Nervous System
Stress is normal and part of everyday life. In small amounts it’s part of our normal physiology to go in and out of stress – early humans needed this part of their nervous system to keep them safe from predators and other life-threatening events. And of course, we still come across threats and dangers ourselves, just different ones. The problem is that our brain doesn’t really know the difference between a real threat and the stresses that we feel in modern day life. Our body still kicks into emergency mode. The issue with being in this mode too much is that our bodies don’t function optimally. It’s called the sympathetic nervous system and when we are running this system energy and oxygen are pumped to our heart, lungs, arm and leg muscles. Our body gets ready to fight, flee or freeze. At the same time areas of the body not needed in an emergency are slowed down. This includes our digestive system and the hormones that we need for birth and breastfeeding such as oxytocin.

In Mindful Breastfeeding we teach parents how to calm their own nervous system to keep themselves out of the sympathetic nervous system when it is not required. This is such a useful thing for any of us to be able to do and it’s a relatively simple once you know how. Tools such as breathing exercises and guided relaxations or visualisations are what we teach parents to help bring themselves out of moments of stress so that they can enjoy the feelings that come with calmness and relaxation and connect more deeply with their baby and themselves.  This leads to improved breastfeeding outcomes and a more fulfilling parenting experience.    

Breastfeeding Support & Education
Support comes in many forms and as doulas you know how vital it is. When I work with expectant families we talk about 3 types of support:

– Partner/co-parent support
– Community support
– Breastfeeding support

I encourage parents to be to talk about and plan how the breastfeeding parent will be supported in the early weeks and months and to put a plan together for what this might look like over the first 6 weeks.  

When it comes to breastfeeding education, before the birth is best. So many people believe that after their baby arrives breastfeeding will just happen naturally and if it doesn’t it can feel like a real shock or like they are failing at this first step in parenthood. Truthfully, breastfeeding, like all other developmental stages in life, is a learned skill. And in a society where most of us see very little breastfeeding in our lives, most expectant parents don’t have a realistic idea of what it will be like.
Good breastfeeding education includes understanding normal infant behaviour and development, as well as how breastfeeding works and when and where to get breastfeeding help. Breastfeeding support telephone numbers or group contacts are hospital bag/home birth kit essentials. If any problems arise at all, families should know who to go to and not to wait until things get worse. Finding breastfeeding-friendly solutions to feeding problems is, sadly, not always forthcoming in our society, so having the details of a local, trusted breastfeeding specialist to be able to share with parents is vital.

It’s such a privilege to work alongside brand-new families at this time in their lives. The road for them doesn’t always feel easy and breastfeeding is often named as a particular challenge. I hope I have inspired you to consider a more mindful approach to breastfeeding support. I truly believe that if we help prioritise calm and connection, so often the breastfeeding follows – it’s certainly a good place to start.

Anna Le Grange is a Mum to 3, IBCLC, Paediatric Nurse and meditation teacher. She is the author of the Mindful Breastfeeding Book and runs breastfeeding education courses at The Mindful Breastfeeding School.

The man who birthed his babies

Nurturing Birth doula and writer Emma Ashworth interviews Yuval Topper, trans man from Yorkshire and birth father of three to find out more about his experiences, and how doulas can better support trans men during pregnancy and birth.

Emma: Tell me about yourself, where you’re from.

Yuval: I am married to Matan, I’m from Israel but I live in the UK and I’m a trans man with three children who I gave birth to.

I had my oldest son (Lyrie) and my daughter (Aria) in Israel – my son in hospital and my daughter at home, although I had planned a home birth for them both. It’s not easy to have a home birth in Israel, and most midwives will not come once you reach 42 weeks, so at just over 41 weeks I was getting quite nervous. I decided to take castor oil which did seem to trigger labour – but also may have been why my Lyrie passed thick meconium when my waters broke, so we transferred to hospital.

Emma: How did Lyrie’s birth go?

Yuval: I really hadn’t wanted to go to hospital. I had gone to a different hospital at about 26 weeks with reduced movements. The experience in the hospital wasn’t too bad, and my baby was looking healthy, but then shortly afterwards a national newspaper contacted me, wanting to write about my ‘story’.  Matan and I decided that we really didn’t want to talk to them – and they ran the story anyway – the first trans man to be pregnant in Israel. It was not positive coverage. The hospital denied that it came from them of course, but it really made me wary of contact with unknown medical staff.

Lyrie’s birth was quite traumatic. As is common in Israel I was made to have interventions that I didn’t want, such as an episiotomy and ventouse. I was also mis-gendered a lot. In Hebrew everything has a gender. In English I might be mis-gendered when someone talks about me, ie using she/her rather than he/him, but in the Hebrew language this can happen when someone speaks to you directly, and this happened a lot during his birth.

I really wanted to be completely naked while I was in labour, but the staff kept covering me which felt really irritating and against my body’s instincts. I did wonder whether they felt uncomfortable seeing my non-conforming body which is why they kept trying to cover me.

After Lyrie was born and I was moved to the postnatal ward, I had a frustrating conversation with a midwife or nurse who kept telling me how unusual the situation was, and she’d never come across it before, but she was fine with it. She was clearly out of her comfort zone and continuing to repeat that she was “fine with it” showed that she maybe wasn’t! Next day another staff member came round to see me and asked whether I was going to “stay a woman” now!

Emma: That sounds really exhausting

Yuval: Yes, I was feeling that I had to justify my existence rather than focus on my baby. But it didn’t end there. Although they gave Lyrie a registration number in the hospital, I had lots of problems when it came to register his birth. They would not allow registration from a man, and that forced me to re-register myself as a woman, register Lyrie and then register as a man again. The process is complex and for a while it was unclear whether they would re-register me as a man, which would have left me with unmatched identification such as my passport and driving licence.

Emma: What happened with Aria’s birth?

I again planned a home birth with Aria, and this time had a very positive birth at home. However when it came to registering her I had even more problems! The Registrar refused point blank to register her and actually told me that Lyrie’s was a “one time offer”! We did manage to register her in the end but it took so much time and effort, and for no benefit to anyone at all. It was transphobia, pure and simple.

Emma: So then you moved to the UK?

Yuval: Yes, and I became pregnant with our third child, Liam. At around 12 weeks of pregnancy I was phoned by the hospital and asked to come in for a scan – they had found a problem on my blood tests. My husband was away and my friend was unable to come with me – I was really nervous about attending an unknown hospital in a new country. Did they even know I am trans? How would they treat me?

In the end I went with a midwife that I had met once before, who I knew was trans friendly, and that she would support me to advocate for whatever I needed – but as it turned out I could not have been better cared for.

When I went to the appointment I received the devastating news that Liam had died at around 10 weeks of pregnancy. Despite the shock of the news I felt extremely well cared for by the obstetrician at the hospital. She made sure to ask me my pronouns, not assuming that I would prefer he/him (which I do) as some trans people prefer they/them or something else. I was otherwise treated just like anyone else – no one tried to ask me whether I was now going to stay as a woman! They were kind and supportive and recognised that I had just lost my baby, and my gender changed nothing about that.

Emma: When you were pregnant with your fourth baby, how did this influence your care decisions?

Yuval: When I was pregnant with Teagan – or Tig as we call him – a medical condition meant that I needed to have frequent scans and tests. My body had become Kell+ sensitised. This is a very rare condition which is very similar to being RhD Positive, but there is no equivalent with Kell+ to the anti-D treatment. I am Kell- and my husband is Kell+, so each baby has a 50/50 chance of being one or the other. As with RhD, this doesn’t matter for the first baby, but if any baby has a different blood type to the birth parent, and if this blood mixes, this can cause problems for subsequent babies. It seems likely that Aria’s blood, which is Kell+, mixed with mine during her birth. This means that my body became sensitised to it and my immune system is then able to attack the blood cells of any Kell+ baby.

We discovered through the NIPT test that Tig was almost certainly Kell-, which was a huge relief, but we could not know for sure. This did lead to a very stressful pregnancy, and I decided that I needed the support of a midwife that I knew, so we hired Hannah, the independent midwife who had been with me when I learned that I was miscarrying Liam. Having Hannah was a huge help, although I was also receiving excellent support from the NHS as well. In the end I birthed Tig at home together with Hannah and my friend Mari, and these photographs are the ones that Matan and I decided to share, and which have gone viral!

Even though the care in the UK was far more trans-friendly than I experienced in Israel there were still serious issues. For instance, the lab rejected my blood tests a number of times as my medical record has me recorded as male, and the lab tests were for pregnancy related conditions. This caused delays and could have impacted on mine or Tig’s health. I was also frustrated that, like in Israel, I had to have my name recorded on Tig’s birth certificate as “mother” – but here I also had to add in my occupation. So Tig’s birth certificate says “Mother… occupation – Full time dad”!

Emma: I love that! I do hope that the NHS will be able to update its systems to better support trans and non-binary people with all aspects of health care. It’s great that that you got the support from the staff. I’m wondering what, as doulas, we could do to better support trans or non binary clients?

Yuval: I think my biggest request would be to not make assumptions! For instance, many people assume that trans people don’t like their bodies. This is really not the case for many people! Many of us are very happy with our bodies. Different people do have different feelings about their body parts though – especially the genitals and the chest. Some people really struggle with the names of genitals and prefer to use different names. Others are happy to use the regular names. Where appropriate and relevant, just ask. However, consider whether you need to know – don’t just ask just because you’re curious. Also listen carefully for the words that the person you are supporting uses, and use the same words. For instance, if they mention chestfeeding, use the word “chestfeeding” rather than “breastfeeding”.

Please don’t assume what our pronouns will be, but ask what we prefer to use.

It can be really helpful to have the discussion about what kind of advocacy would be useful to us when we are in labour, or in hospital if we’re planning a caesarean. Please check whether, for instance, we’d want you to correct people using the wrong pronouns or words to describe the body that we have already said we would prefer to not use.

Ask if there are any other aspects of care that the doula should know and ensure that the medical staff know, if relevant. For instance, some trans men may be even more likely than women to object to having their breast/chest exposed or touched – especially those trans men who have not had top surgery (breast removal surgery).

Otherwise, trans people have the same needs in pregnancy and birth as anyone else, so once the differences have been discussed, please just support us as you would everyone else. Like birthing women, we want to have births which are right for us and personalised support where we are each asked what we need as an individual.

Yuval lives with his husband Matan and three children in Yorkshire, UK. To follow him on Facebook, click here: https://www.facebook.com/yuvaltopperez

If you are looking for doula support, please visit the Nurturing Birth Doula Directory.

Three photos of Yuval - 1, Yuval in the birth pool leaning over the pool with Matan behind him. 2, Yuval holding a newborn Tig in his arms and smiling at him while still in the pool. 3, Yuval cuddling Tig who is wearing a rainbow hat.

Nurturing Birth would like to thank Tara Leach for permitting us to use her birth photography images in this article.
‘Your Child’s First Adventure’. ‘Tara Leach is a Manchester-based birth photographer.  She is interested in documenting all births and all adventures. To get in touch either see her on Facebook or email taraleachphotography@yahoo.com

Marketing your Doula Business during the festive period

Slimline your christmas marketing

Oooh… there’s a whiff of excitement in the air and it smells like cinnamon and mulled wine! People are officially using the C word… which can mean only one thing. How the jeepers did Christmas creep round so quickly?

Christmas this year – like the rest of 2020 – is not going to be “normal” but no matter your plans for the festivities, the business of birth continues, and doulas keep on working. And to do that we need to keep on promoting our services. How do we do that at this busy time of year?

Well don’t worry! The Nurturing Birth team is on the case and we’re here to share four secrets to keeping your marketing efforts on point so you can slay that festive guilt, and focus on more pressing things, like your next cocktail choice, thinking up creative ideas for Elf on the Shelf or which present to open first!

The secret to staying visible, active and sustaining your marketing efforts throughout the Christmas holidays is to take a more relaxed, slimline approach.  This way you’ll still look like you’re blogging, posting on social media, and chatting with your subscribers, but, secretly, you could be lying (totally laptop-less) on the sofa letting your lunch go down and catching up on TV.

Your doula business doesn’t have to take a back seat, just because you are. So with that in mind, here are…

Christmas Marketing for Doulas

Republish your Blogs

You don’t always have to create brand new doula blogs. If you’ve been blogging for a while, you’ve probably got more than enough content to republish some of your favourite older articles instead. Your newer followers may not have noticed a particular blog first-time around (or second or third in fact) so don’t worry! And if you’re sharing great content then that content is still great and is still really valuable to parents. That’s what it’s all about!

Schedule Your Social Media

There are stacks of social media scheduling apps around and some are worth their weight in brandy doused Christmas pud! Scheduling your social media in advance gives you that Superdoula feeling of having everything organised for the entire week by 7am on Monday! Scaling back on the number of posts you write and publish is another way to dilute the Christmas biz pressure too.

Maintaining your visibility is important and if the bare minimum is one post a day, then schedule one post a day on each of your social media platforms. Manage your follower expectations by posting that you’re taking a wee break over the festive season. Many of your followers will likely be doing the same so they will totally understand. This way you’re keeping your doula services visible, supporting people and at the same time drinking wine. Everyone’s a winner.

Create & Schedule Your Newsletter(s)

If you’re a weekly newsletter sender, then ease that festive burden and adopt a monthly approach during December and January. A bumper Christmas edition or two (which also directs your subscribers to your republished blogs) is perfectly acceptable – and sometimes more likely to be read. Save more time by creating and scheduling your newsletters in advance and you’ll know your subscribers won’t assume you’ve abandoned them. Ah… the beauty of automation. We love it!

Decide on a Simple Christmas Content Subject and Stick to it

Another great way to avoid trying to post on Facebook while you’re tucking into your trifle is to think about (and plan) the type of content you want to focus on over the next six to ten weeks.  Keep it easy by sifting through your calendar and finding any upcoming National or International days which fit with your interest as a doula. Take a handful of your blogs and weave the same subject thread through your social media pages and newsletters too.

In need of inspiration? Check out:

So go and enjoy your Christmas, make family memories (kids grow up so quickly!) and slay that Festive business guilt.

Come January you’ll feel refreshed, rejuvenated and ready to conquer the world, again!

Updated November 2020 by Emma