Doula

Guiding you Through your Journey

Doula Services

Have an informed pregnancy, birth and postpartum journey with full-service support including: Prenatal Education and Birth Preparation, Birth Recovery & Trauma Support, and Postpartum Guidance. Together, we will work to ensure you are feeling validated, supported and confident in your journey ahead as a mother.
 
As women, we can experience a range of challenges and difficulties during our transition into motherhood including anxiety, depression, and more general adjustment difficulties to becoming a parent. Having a space to talk through, explore how you are feeling and what you are experiencing or have experienced is extremely important in the health of your wellbeing, your capacity to connect with and recognise your own needs and the impacts on your close relationships.
 
You will be met as you are during each session to talk through and address concerns or curiosities along with being provided with the appropriate resource and individualised support to continue moving forward into the journey of motherhood. I collaborate with you bringing through a delicate balance of coaching, guidance and resource while honouring your unique wants, needs and requirements.  
 

Full Spectrum Doula (Birth & Postpartum)
Prenatal Education
Birth Preparation
Birth Trauma Healing
Postnatal Counselling
Closing the Bones (Closing the Hips)
Breathwork Education & Facilitation
Workshops

PRENATAL CLIENTS

The transition from Maiden to Mother is a profound experience. As women, we are adapting to and learning to trust the changes we are feeling in our body and receiving external information and opinion on societal expectations around pregnancy, birth and motherhood.
 
Let's sit down together to gain some clarity on your concerns/needs/interests/wants/progress/beliefs/planning etc.
 
Some common areas that prenatal clients wish to work on include (but are not limited too):

WELLNESS

  • Mama Foods: Nutritional suggestions to support a healthy pregnancy. 
  • Postpartum Preparation: Meals and recovery foods including recipes and nutritional basics.
  • Restorative approachs to building your physical and mental strength through breathwork, nutrition and movement.
  • The 'Paradox of Motherhood'
  • The Breath and your Nervous System

COMMUNITY RESOURCES

  • Referrals and educational information on the benefits and support of practitioners: Acupuncture, Chiropractor, Massage, Yoga, Naturopath etc. according to your needs.
  • Postpartum support preparation: Lactation Consultant, Sleep Consultant etc. according to your needs.

BIRTH PREPARATION

  • Visualizing your birth and your wishes (Birth Plan discussion and creation).
  • Understanding the physiology of birth.
  • Building your birth values.
  • An exploration of any past birth & pregnancy experiences.
  • Care providers and building your tribe (midwife/OB referrals etc.)
  • Birth location options.
  • Informed consent and birth intervention awareness.
  • Comfort measures for labour. 
  • Exploring fear around pregnancy, labour and birth.

BABY'S WORLD

  • Pregnancy tests and scans.
  • Impacts of diet, exercise and rest during pregnancy.
  • Foetal development throughout each trimester.
  • Expressing colostrum in the 3rd trimester.
  • Environment preparation (creating baby's space, creating mama's sanctuary, birthing space and set up (home birth)).
  • Breastfeeding and/or formula, bottle preparation.
Prenatal Testimonial...
"I lost the feelings of joy and excitement during my pregnancy due to all of the information that came my way from friends, family and my pregnancy care team. It was a lot and I very quickly felt overwhelmed and could feel myself shutting down entirely. During my sessions with Vanessa, I was able to talk through what pregnancy and birth meant to me and how I felt in my body about decisions that needed to be made. Vanessa helped me to create and follow a path forward that I felt comfortable with. I felt so prepared and resourced that my excitement returned and I was ready to meet the experience of birth as I wanted to." Claire

POSTPARTUM CLIENTS

Childbirth can stay with a woman for the rest of her life and have significant psychological, physical and social impacts.
 
The experience of birth and postpartum is one of huge transition. You are healing from your pregnancy and birth journey while learning the ways of a newborn. It is our physiologic design to be deeply rested and resourced for an optimum recovery and cared for as a newborn mother deserves to be.
 
 

Some common areas that postpartum clients wish to work on include (but are not limited too):

  • ​Emotional and mental health support.
  • Talking through your pregnancy and birth experience/s.
  • Understanding how the brain and body respond to and store trauma.
  • The expectations of parenthood vs. the reality.
  • The Paradox of Motherhood.
  • Receiving personalised nutritional insight and education supportive to your mind/body recovery.
  • Compassionately exploring the current relationships you have with your baby/children and partner and the steps to mending your family after a traumatic birth.
  • Embodying 'responsive' instead of 'reactive' parenting techniques.
  • Understanding the ripple effects and impacts of birth trauma.
  • Referrals as needed to appropriate care providers - lactation consultants, physiotherapists etc. 
  • Restorative body techniques embodied to support regulation of your nervous system as you seek understanding and healing of your birth experience.
  • Guidance to help you to trust your intuition and discover your own parenting philosophy. 
  • The importance of scar tissue healing
  • Exploring your relationship with your C-Section scar
  • Recognising the language around C-Section births (perspectives, resistance or judgements we may hold)
  • The emotional layers of a C-section recovery
  • The importance of appropriate c-section recovery for future pregnancies 
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Postpartum Testimonial...
"Vanessa created a space within our sessions where I felt safe to open myself up. To feel seen, heard and emotionally validated played a huge part in the acceptance of my postpartum depression. I felt I was able to anchor back into my body which has allowed me to be in better alignment with my needs as a woman. It is such a powerful realisation that we have to work on all parts of ourself in order to heal and Vanessa was able to help me find what was unique to me and the steps forward to feel supported and like myself again." Lucy
Auckland Physiotherapy Womens Health
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