The Doula Jo Slade

Home
United Kingdom
Brighton and Hove
The Doula Jo Slade

Birth and Postnatal Doula

14/10/2025

Another care package winging it’s way to a well deserving new Mum!
This morning I spent a lovely couple of hours with my client and her beautiful new baby boy, born a few days ago. We chatted about how her feeding and recovery is going, and she had a chance to go over her birth experience. (And I got a gorgeous baby cuddle!)
I made her some herbal tea and, as always, enjoyed baking some goodies for her! It’s always really emotional to be saying goodbye to a family I’ve spent a lot of time with, and I feel so lucky to have been invited alongside her as she navigated her pregnancy and labour. 💕

P.S the books are Beautiful Chaos by and The Little Book of Self-Care for New Mums by and

01/09/2025

One of the loveliest things we’ve done this summer holidays is visit Sussex Prairie Gardens in Henfield

As well as all the beautiful flowers and plants, Indian bazaar, tea and cake, there was an unexpected art exhibition that I fell in love with. It is called Domestic Dusters. Each duster is hand stitched by a woman, a wife, a mother, to reflect her domestic experience. I spend so long in there, and read every single duster with tears running down my face.

I felt despair at how far there is to go before women don’t feel the inequitable weight of the invisible labour and mental load of keeping family homes and lives running on track. But I also felt hope, that it’s being acknowledged and talked about, and that one day this so-called ‘women’s work’ will be valued as highly as it deserves.

Thanks for the recommendation Madeleine, we loved it!

The project can be found

30/07/2025

My first attempt at making my own bread was a success! 🙌

30/06/2025

Loving the new artwork for my office, and some beautiful extras included as well! Thank you

12/06/2025

Receiving feedback like this is hugely heartwarming 🥰

I’m so grateful to this Mum for allowing me to share her journey, and provide support throughout her pregnancy, birth and into the early postnatal days.

If you are interested in doula support for your birth, do get in touch for a chat.

25/05/2025

Summer is coming and so it’s time for me to get my early warning out there about the dangers of ‼️ black henna tattoos. ‼️

2 years ago my youngest daughter asked for a henna tattoo while we were on holiday. I didn’t even know black henna existed, and just assumed the tattoo would be with the natural, brown henna I knew was safe.

Now I know that black henna is very dangerous. It’s made with a substance called para-phenylenediamine (PPD). This is allowed for use in hair dyes, but its use for skin contact products is illegal in the EU.

It can cause blistering, rashes, and burning on the skin, but worse, it can leave you with a lifelong sensitivity to PPD, meaning you are at high risk of a severe allergic reaction (not necessarily only skin, but also respiratory) to hair dyes and other products containing PPD (some rubbers, inks, cosmetics etc) in the future.

To add insult to injury, neither the GP nor the pharmacist had heard of the PPD reaction, and didn’t believe her rash was because of the black henna (😡 seriously?! It’s literally in the shape of a gecko🦎)

By sheer luck, a friend has a friend who is a dermatologist and she told us which cream to ask for. Her arm took months to heal and now she has a lifetime ahead of checking the ingredients on all the things other teenagers don’t have to think twice about 😢

For a long time I felt like a terrible Mum for allowing it to happen, and now I feel so angry that more people are not aware of the dangers (including medical professionals)
It was definitely another lesson in advocating for my wishes and the health of my children, and not taking no for an answer!

Always check the henna is natural brown henna before agreeing to the tattoo! And for more information check out www.britishskinfoundation.org.uk

14/05/2025

Loving these tall beauties that have self-seeded in my garden this year - I counted 48 bees on them at one time today! 🐝🐝

08/05/2025

I had the great privilege at the weekend of supporting a new mum overnight in hospital. It was her first night with her new baby following a caesarean.

The first night can feel very long if you are exhausted, uncomfortable or overwhelmed. I was so happy to be there to provide a friendly ear, and help with breastfeeding, nappy changing and baby cuddling!

I took along some nourishing postpartum herbal tea and snacks, and I hope that all of this went some way towards allowing her some much deserved rest and recovery.

I feel so proud that she invested in herself - and by default her new baby, and whole family.
Start the postnatal period on the right foot, with the knowledge that you are just as important as your baby!

20/03/2025

I had a fantastic day yesterday attending a training course at Brighton University. Thank you Molly !

I was great to mix with student midwives, independent midwives and other doulas and learn valuable tools for optimising physiology during pregnancy and labour. Can’t wait to get practising now!

10/03/2025

Today is my youngest daughter’s 12th birthday 🎉 and a great excuse to share this photo of when I was 41 weeks pregnant with her and to talk about big babies!

I suspected she would be a large baby, but somehow during pregnancy I avoided anyone telling me she was ‘too’ big, or suggesting extra scans, and I was able to look forward to labour with a really positive mindset.

When she was born she weighed 10Ib 6oz (4.7kg) But what a wonderful birth it was! Born on Mother’s Day, in the water, in hospital with hardly anyone speaking to me, and certainly no interventions. 💪

The midwives trusted me, my body and my baby completely, and I’m thankful for this every day. It gave me the chance to experience a completely physiological birth, which went a long way towards healing the trauma I experienced during my first hospital labour.

Sadly these days it seems a lot of maternity professionals have lost faith in women’s ability to birth their ‘big’ babies, and more and more women are agreeing to inductions or caesarians, which carry their own risks.
If this is the right path for you, and you feel informed, then I support you wholeheartedly, but many are being coerced using false information and fear mongering, and are being robbed of the chance to birth the way they wanted.

Scans are known now to have a 15% margin of error, so a baby they tell you is 8Ib could be 9Ib 2oz, or 6Ib 8oz. There is no way to tell until they are born.

I could talk about this forever! Even if your baby is larger than average, you can trust that your body and your baby know what to do, and that ultimately, birth is safe!

07/03/2025

What a wonderful week it’s been - the sun is out and I had the privilege of supporting my lovely couple as they brought their baby into the world! I caught up with them today for baby cuddles and to chat through their experience of the birth and how they’ve found this first week.
I’ll never stop being amazed at how birth unfolds, and how wonderful our bodies are!

If you’d like to know more about how I can support you through your pregnancy, birth and postnatal period, please do get in touch.

23/02/2025

It was World Breastfeeding in Public Day 2025 yesterday (I was travelling home from a holiday in Devon and missed posting one of my favourite photos!)

I’m such an advocate for feeding your baby or child anywhere you want. It’s totally normal and natural! 🤱

We talk about breastfeeding a lot in my antenatal sessions. Knowing what to expect, and how your body works, can help enormously, and set you up for success.

And if you have already had your baby and are struggling with anything to do with breastfeeding, as a postnatal doula I can support you - with feeding queries, attachment and positioning worries, understanding and embracing normal infant feeding behaviour, or building up your confidence to feed in public! 💪
And if we discover there is something going on that I am not qualified to deal with, I can quickly put you in touch with people who are.

Address

Brighton And Hove

Website

http://www.thedoulajoslade.co.uk/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Doula Jo Slade posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Practice

Send a message to The Doula Jo Slade:

Shortcuts

Want your practice to be the top-listed Clinic in Brighton and Hove?