Sarah YogiMama Birth Doula Prenatal Yoga

18/09/2025

NEW YOGA TIMETABLE
* Term 4 (Oct-Dec) *

Why Prenatal Yoga?

🪷 Improves sleep & restores emotional balance
🪷 Reduces stress, anxiety & overwhelm (nervous system)
🪷 Relieves common pregnancy aches (back, neck, shoulders)
🪷 Strengthens, lengthens & prepares muscles & ligaments for childbirth
🪷 Provides evidence-based tools for a physiological labour & birth
🪷 Deepens the bond with your growing baby
🪷 Connects you with like-minded mamas walking the same path.

Attend one or both pregnancy classes each week. Flexible attendance to suit your schedule - casual & class passes available. No lock in commitment:
$25 casual
$100 for 5 class pass
$190 for 10 class pass

📍Location
Charlestown, carpark on site

🫶🏼 Link in bio to join YogiMama community or DM to book first class
✨ Invited to join a mother’s group curated for your birthing season
👶🏽 Postnatal only available to mamas who attended prenatal yoga classes.

17/09/2025

Dedication to the mothers and babies who invite me into the sacred unfolding of their journey — thank you. Forever humbled, forever grateful 🌿

📸 front-row bubba seats at yoga

16/09/2025

I bring the map 🗺️
You hold the compass 🫶🏼
Together, we find the way ✨

15/09/2025

The true magic of YogiMamas ✨
This is yoga in action — sangha, sacred community.

It’s the friendships that spill beyond the yoga mats — the coffee catch ups, lake-side walks, ocean dips and texts that say “I’m right here with you, mama.”

This is the village come alive.
Women holding women. Mothers supporting mothers. A web of connection where we meet ourselves and each other with curiosity, compassion, and trust 💕

💫 Join PRENATAL YOGA today to find your tomorrow postpartum village — YogiMamas groups are curated by birth season, your invitation activates after attending 3 classes in pregnancy 🧘🏼‍♀️

📸 YogiMamas mother’s groups
📍 Lake Mac & Newcastle

Find link to join yoga community on IG bio or drop comment/questions below👇🏼

21/08/2025

I had the pleasure of getting to know Clare and her loving partner, Justin, over the course of a two year conception journey. Ivy’s birth at home was nothing short of magic to begin their new chapter as a family. This is their story…

✨ Birth of Ivy Rose ✨
Born at home 05/06/25
37+1 weeks, 2.69kg 💕

A little background — this was my first birth but not my first pregnancy. I’d had a missed miscarriage and two chemical pregnancies (one after IVF) before discovering high thyroid antibodies and starting meds. The very next cycle — after a much-needed holiday to reset — I conceived naturally. From the very beginning I just knew she was a girl with her own agenda.

The day before her birth was calm and ordinary — my usual PT morning session, birth pool delivered, supplies dropped off by Belmont MGP, labour rehearsal at home with Sarah, and a lovely dinner with my parents. At 37 weeks, I thought I had more time…but Ivy had other plans.

At 10:30pm my waters broke in bed. Contractions followed within the hour and steadily built through the night. With Ivy posterior, labour was intense, but with Sarah’s guidance, Spinning Babies/OMP, rebozo, acupressure points for back pain, TENS and spiky balls, I found my calm.

By midday, exhausted and expecting to have a long way to go, I called Belmont over and consented to a check — to everyone’s surprise I was 9cm. Ivy had rotated beautifully, and by 1pm the fetal ejection reflex had taken over. At 1:14pm, just as the pool was ready, our little miracle was born into the water 🌸

Ivy’s arrival may have been earlier than expected, but I wouldn’t change a thing. After a long conception journey, her birth felt like pure healing. I am so grateful to Sarah our Doula and Danika the Midwife for their care, and to my husband, Justin, for being by my side every moment.

Shared in gratitude
Doula Support & 📷 .yogimama
Provider:

17/08/2025

I had the pleasure of supporting Corinne in her third birth — her very first unmedicated, intervention-free experience. While she had planned for a home birth, Corinne navigated a challenging late switch to hospital due to prenatal hypertension.

This is their story 🤍

With my first birth in 2019, my heart was set on an unmedicated water birth. After 48 exhausting hours, I transferred to hospital and had an epidural. With my second, I developed high blood pressure and a fever at 37 weeks, and was induced. Both babies arrived safely, but I carried disappointment in how my births unfolded.

This time, pregnant with my third (and final) baby, I hired Sarah as our Birth Doula. I conjured images again of my watery dream. I began care with and, with their support and Sarah’s, shifted my heart toward home birth. But at 37 weeks, high blood pressure returned. Accepting medication meant a switch to shared care with John Hunter, and I grieved the loss of my home birth — especially after attending Sarah’s Winter Circle, where I realised how deeply that dream lived in me.

After a few false starts, at 40+2 contractions woke me. By 4am they were 3 mins apart, and I chose to head in so I wouldn’t miss the tub. The room was set with dim lights, affirmations, and music. I laboured in the bath, rested with the peanut ball, then hit transition — full of doubt, whispering I was tired and thinking of an epidural. Sarah turned my attention to the task at hand, knowing what I truly wanted. My waters broke immediately.

In the shower, pressure built until our Midwife on the day, Amba, urged me back to the bath. At 9:03am, after gripping the tub and roaring through surges, my husband caught our son, Jones, who arrived sleepy and calm, like he didn’t yet know he was earthside. My placenta birthed naturally at 9:30am and I cut his cord at 9:50am.

This birth was redemptive, healing, and everything I longed for. Now I’m soaking it all in — the feeds, the cuddles, the chaos, the magic. My heart is full 👧🏼🧒🏼👶🏼

📷 .yogimama
John Hunter Hospital (June, 2025)
With gratitude

16/08/2025

Meet Sarah | YogiMama ✨

My journey into birth work began after my own two powerful, unmedicated births — transformational experiences that sparked a deep reverence for the strength and intuition of women. Yoga became a vital part of that path, and in 2017 I became a certified instructor, specialising in prenatal and postnatal. Since 2018, I’ve had the honour of walking alongside 140 families through birth. I’m deeply passionate about human physiology, informed choice, and believe empowered, healthy births are the foundation for a healthier world 🌏

A little about me
libra ♎️ | aquarius 🌙 | capricorn rising ↑
42 laps around the sun 🌞
24 years with my man ❤️
Mama to a teen girl & boy
14 years on the yoga mat 🧘🏼‍♀️
7 years as a birth doula

Current favourites
🤰🏼 prenatal yoga asana – Goddess pose
🎶 labour artist – Ayla Nereo
🍯 labour snack – bliss balls
🥣 post-birth meal – congee

Words I live by
Birth affirmation 💪🏼 “Enter the pain, to discover your power.”
Quote ✨ “The universe is always conspiring in your favour.”

I live and work on beautiful Awabakal Country, supporting women across Lake Macquarie and Newcastle. When I’m not teaching or doula-ing, you’ll find me at the beach with my Groodles 🌊🐕

14/08/2025

Example:
Parents’ Informed Decisions for Golden Hour

🕊️ Keep baby attached to placenta until after it is birthed
🕊️ Maintain skin-to-skin with mum
🕊️ No rush to weigh, measure or breastfeed — support baby breast crawl
🕊️ Mum will cut cord when we feel ready
🕊️ We will supply our own birth tie
🕊️ Take a print of the placenta
🕊️ Bring placenta home for later burial

Thank you for holding a sacred and calm birth space for our family.

13/08/2025

A little game I call…“What If?” 🎲

As part of my personalised birth preparation sessions, I devised a game called What If? — designed to work alongside and deepen contingency pathway planning.

The aim is simple: spark important conversations, uncover any gaps in knowledge and decide your approach.

Together, expecting parents explore a range of “what if” scenarios that could arise during labour and birth - thereby providing an opportunity to clarify individual comfort levels and check alignment in perspectives.

The focus is always on the Expected Pathway, however we prepare for any ‘detours’ or ‘roadblocks’ that might arise in the unique birth journey - these are called Contingencies.

From there, I support you to create practical plans and tailored responses adapted to your intended model of care (place of birth) and discuss care provider’s policies and procedures.

Some example scenarios include:
• Prodromal labour lasting days
• Waters rupture before labour
• Midwife doesn’t arrive in time
• Baby born with a low APGAR
• Placenta longer than one hour
• Postpartum haemorrhage
• Baby born in the car

This isn’t about giving medical advice or directing what you choose — doulas don’t do that — but I can offer a treasure chest of evidence-based resources and anecdotal examples (from my experience supporting 140 births) so you feel confident to make informed decisions for your baby and your birth ahead of the big day.

⸻
Remember,
“A positive birth is not always where everything goes to plan, but rather where every decision is made with confidence.”

📸 .yogimama
Thank you for playing

Catherine Bell’s

11/08/2025

Most women I speak to have a deep desire for undisturbed birth, yet fear and “what ifs” often drown out intuition.

You may have read the latest Mother & Baby Report 😝 and found yourself wondering about having your baby at home? Or maybe you’ve been questioning standard maternity care for a while and are curious about low-intervention birth?

Years of social conditioning tells us that birth is a medical event to be managed. Yet, research shows the risk of perinatal or neonatal mortality is no different whether birth was intended at home or in hospital (Hutton et al, 2019).

The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised concern that the increasing medicalisation of childbirth tends to undermine women’s own capability to give birth and negatively impacts their childbirth experience (Olsen & Clausen 2023).

Many studies also confirm other benefits of birthing at home - higher breastfeeding rates and greater maternal satisfaction.

For healthy women with low-risk pregnancies (VBAC & GD included), homebirth is a safe alternative—and in our region, we’re spoiled for choice when it comes to incredible privately practising midwives who provide full continuity of care from pregnancy through postpartum:

✨
✨
✨
✨
✨
✨
✨ .coast.homebirth

There is also a publicly funded home-birth program and one launching - which are free to access, but come with stricter eligibility criteria and more policy-driven guidelines compared to private midwifery care.

I’ve worked alongside and learnt from all of the above listed midwives — highly recommend interviewing a couple to see who you vibe with.

For a deeper dive:


💭 Do you need a doula if you have a midwife? That’s entirely up to you. Many choose both—and in my view, that’s the dream team 💫

📷 .yogimama
(Bonnie - born at home, April 2025)

10/08/2025

Link to FAQ on Doula Support

My Partner is Unsure About Having a Doula?

Answer: This is very common for a partner to be unsure about having a doula often feeling like a doula might replace him, but it’s the opposite, as a doula allows a partner to relax and enjoy becoming a Dad, whatever that looks like for him on the day.

Discover the role of a doula and FAQ's here:
https://birthright.com.au/doulas/what-is-a-doula-faqs/

08/08/2025

“What does the milk taste like?”
She was nearly three.
We were nearing the end.
She paused, smiled, and said —
“Vanilla love, Mama.” 🧁

Breastfeeding has been
the most tender part of mothering for me.

A rhythm of giving —
not just milk,
but presence,
attunement,
love.

Day and night,
whenever she needed —
food, comfort, grounding.
My body, her home.
A meditation in motion.
A tether between us.

It shaped our bond —
attuned, responsive,
woven with love.

It wrote the first lines
of our relationship —
listening, responding,
staying near.

A blueprint for the years ahead,
an unspoken language
between us.

From my heart to theirs —
endless vanilla love.

📸 My baby girl (2015)