Kingston Doula

31/01/2025

Doulas who gather send the oxytocin through the roof!

❤️ Laughing
❤️ Collaborating
❤️ Sharing
❤️ Witnessing
❤️ Inspiring
❤️ Connecting
❤️ Celebrating
❤️ Supporting

No comparing and despairing in this space! We are Partners in Believing and we spark curiosity in one another. 💪



Matters

28/01/2025

If there was a Doula for aspiring IBCLC‘s it would be this woman right here.

Imogen was my cheerleader and virtual study companion as I was revising for my IBCLC exam. We would text late into the night on various issues relating to lactation, specifically ones related to things going on with her baby. Her baby was my greatest teacher. She is a strong and sparky bright light ✨ who came into this world 7 weeks early.

She had feeding challenges that got me researching and learning so that I could support Imogen to optimise her feeding journey and meet her feeding goals. 💪

Now Imogen’s baby is 9 and a half months old and she’s breastfeeding well, as well as enjoying her solids, and thriving. Thank you, Imogen and baby for inviting me into your journey. 🙏

22/01/2025

I love teaching and facilitating.

My heart is full reading Lisa’s feedback.

What a joy to be able to serve not only clients but also my colleagues.

Swipe the slides for opportunities to Deepen your practice with me.

16/01/2025

16/01/2025

Still on a high after a lovely evening with my local Doula community where we spent the evening looking back at 2024 and planning for an intentional 2025.
bianca.albernaz
reiki.doula mackinnon







When Doulas come together magic happens ✨🫶

For those of you, who couldn’t make it
yoga.doula


Looking forward to seeing you at the next gathering!

21/12/2024

Loving my new badge and lanyard. Thank you, Hannah they are beautifully designed.

I will wear them with pride. ❤️

11/12/2024

Jumping for Joy at having received the news that I am now a qualified IBCLC (International Board Certified Lactation Consultant).

🤔 So what’s that?
IBCLC is the highest qualification that you can achieve in Infant Feeding support.

You can use the title of IBCLC once you’ve taken and passed the exam administered by the IBLCE®, (International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners®) an international credentialing body. The requirements I had to meet just to apply to sit the exam took me years to acquire (gone slower than planned, thanks to Covid 😣)

🤔 Why do all that and take the exam?

It is an international exam and credential; the journey to it gives everyone a breadth and depth of lactation support that meets standards which demonstrate the your knowledge and skill to practise in the field of lactation consulting.

Plus, and I quote the IBCLE’s website:
“Working together with families, policymakers, and society, IBCLCs provide expert breastfeeding and lactation care, promote changes that support breastfeeding and help reduce the risks of not breastfeeding.”

I now feel that with the experience, clinical knowledge, and lactation specific knowledge that I can truly provide evidenced based care that will help women with both basic and complex challenges get closer to, and succeed in, achieving their feeding goals. ✨🎉

06/12/2024

✨ Turning towards 2025 ✨

I’m looking forward to this new year…

What do I see for my career self in 2025:

🏨 Continue working as an Infant Feeding supporter with Chelsea Westminster Hospital supporting families to meet their feeding goals. I’ve been there for 2 years now, both in the community as well as on the Postnatal Ward.

👩‍🏫 Facilitate the Initial Preparation course in Kingston upon Thames, training new Postnatal Doulas to enter the wonderful profession of supporting families. (FYI, Those Kingston courses are scheduled for May and November 2025!)

⭐️ Take over from facilitating the Younique Postnatal Postnatal Planner workshop, where we hone in on helping clients reflect on what they need to prepare for the postnatal period and why this is so important.

⭐️ Regularly offer my ‘Visioning Your Doula Practice’ Workshop, where I guide Doulas to embody themselves as successful and gain clarity on how to move forward in alignment with their values with attainable action steps.

⭐️ Offer my services in Breastfeeding Support to women in London and Surrey both within my Postnatal Doula care as well as through standalone Breastfeeding consultations.

⭐️ Continue to support new Doulas as a Doula Mentor.

⭐️ Continue to support families as a Birth Doula.

⭐️ And last, but definitely not least, continue to support families as a Postnatal Doula, the focal point of my vocation as a birth worker. ✨💪





Thanks to for the headshot ❤️

10/08/2024

I’ve just come from celebrating with the Home Birth Kingston Midwifery Team their 10 year anniversary. 🎉❤️

It was a walk down memory lane for me.

I first got involved with supporting families to make informed decisions on the place of birth that is right for them when I was founding member of the Community group “Home Birth Kingston“ with Kate (who then went on to become a Kingston homebirth Midwife herself!), as well as Helen, Eryn, Anna, Susan, Chloe, Philippa, Lucie, Jo, Simone, Suzanne and Claire. We ran for 8 years holding peer group meetings, running a lending Library, a Birth Pool Hire, leaflet distribution, holding comedy night fundraisers, awareness raising tea parties, an active fb group and sharing stories. Lots of lots of stories.

We started up our group in 2012. We first held our meetings in at the Grey Horse pub, then at Educare and then eventually in our own homes.

We wound up our group in January 2020 yet never got to celebrate within ‘end of an era’ drink due to Covid. (We had March 27 in the diary. 😬)

As always, back when we birthed our babies, as well as today, the HB midwifery Team is comprised of caring, women-focused Midwives who are dedicated, professional and all around great people. 🙌

Also, big Thank you to the team and to Francis forgiving a shout out to the Doula community as well, in our role of supporting families. ❤️👏

Look forward to celebrating the 20th anniversary in 2034!

Photo reel: 1: me and my Home Birth baby at the celebration tea party 2014, 2-4: more from the celebration tea party, 5: Our poster, 6: Our lending library sticker, 7: Our ‘business’ card, 8: Article on our 3 year anniversary celebration, 9: Poster from our 2014 fundraiser, 10: My Home Birth ❤️

21/06/2024

📢 Younique Postnatal has announced the autumn launch of a new location for their Postnatal Doula Initial Preparation course!

Kingston upon Thames 💃🏻🎉

Join and me and Victoria from from October 7 - 11 in Kingston upon Thames, for the Younique Postnatal Doula Initial Preparation course.

We’ll spend five days together covering everything you need to know to get you started on your journey towards becoming a postnatal doula.

If you have any questions about the course or want more info, head to the link in my bio, pop a comment below or send me a dm and l’d be happy to have a chat!

What’s that date again you ask?!

⬇️
October 7 - 11, 2024!

16/06/2024

✨ Father’s Day and mental health ✨

My father would have been 97 this Father’s Day. I don’t often speak about him

Learning about trauma and anxiety through my work, supporting dads, and intergenerational trauma and pain, have helped me understand better what challenges my own father could have been facing. My training have given me a window into understanding what his ‘dead Harrys’ (thank you for the metaphor), might have been; that is, the narrative he lived his life by.

The societal pressures, the norms he was expected to conform to, the messages around masculinity, coupled with a lack of communication skills, a lifetime of regrets, and anxiety which the only way he knew how to handle was through alcoholism.

His ‘dead Harrys’:
💔 losing his first child when she was 2 to sole custody of his first wife, and not to see her again until she was in her mid fifties (it was a truly heart warming and loving reunion I’ll just add)

💔 Enlisting in the US army, getting accepted to pilot training, yet never getting sent overseas to serve his country, and fulfilling the expectation of ‘bringing honour’ to the family.

💔 Pressure to fulfill his role as ‘provider’ and stay for 50 years in a job which he grew to hate and coped with though alcohol abuse.

💔 Pressure to stay in his second marriage that made him unhappy due to a wife who wasn’t his ally in dreams and visions

💔 No one to turn to for help with his anxiety which, for example, made, for example, driving with him hell for us, and social engagements an embarrassment as he drank to ‘relax’ to the point of stumble-drunk (as ‘real men’ didn’t ask for help, go to the doctor or goodness forbid, seek out therapy)

💔 Coping with his anxieties through alcohol abuse which made day to day life with him very unpleasant for the rest of us.

When I think of him, I think of ‘what ifs’: what if he and my mother went for counselling, if he acquired tools for his anxiety, if he sought for custody of his first daughter? Would he have been happier?

We have some services now for dads who are struggling, eg, but we need more.

Anyway, here’s a few snaps.