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The Doting Doula, Southsea (2025)

15/08/2023

My Motto in all of this…

🌊 Don’t be afraid to make waves 🌊

In Hypnobirthing and Doulaing, language is the cornerstone to positivity. We reframe statements used by medical professionals to favour a positive mindset.

Do you recoil at the words “Moist” or perhaps “phlegm” or god forbid I mention “discharge”?? - Most people do!

As intelligent beings, we relate words to their many meanings for example:

Contraction… contract…. Binding…bills….debt….prison….can’t escape… unsafe building…hazard. Not to mention it’s harsh sound CON (neggy) TRAKKKTT.

Not something a pregnant person should hear repeatedly and associate with PAIN? Perhaps not.

Especially when it is not any of those things 👆🏻 🤌🏻🤌🏻
A contraction is the body efficiently moving muscles in intervals to help baby make it’s way through the birth canal.

👉🏻So we call them SURGES. Or WAVES.

👉🏻I use the term Waves more because it helps me to visualise the feeling washing over me, reaching its peak and fall back down.

👉🏻 I also identify water and the ocean with HEALING, abundance, power and beauty and most of all CALM. To know the wave in all its glory comes crashing toward me, I submit and enjoy the water and let it fall away to enjoy the calm until the next one.
Coupled with the visualisation that the tide slowly inches in wave by wave will be bringing me my baby.
Makes a bit of sense dunnit??

👉🏻 Don’t be afraid to make waves, YOU are the maker of the wave my dear, so you have it in YOU to ride them!! Just submit to the feeling and know you are as strong as they feel! Each and every wave brings that tide an inch closer to shore.

👉🏻 And in another sense. Make those ripples. And don’t give a damn because this is your birth and your baby! EVERYTHING requires your CONSENT. So don’t be afraid to make waves when it comes to your decisions. Remember ‘NO’ is more than enough in the delivery room.

So Hang 10cm MAMA! YOU’VE GOT THIS 💪🏻🌊

I live by the sea, my son is called River, I’ve birthed 2 babies in water, I’m a Pisces ♓️ love a bath and I’m very well hydrated. Waves are ma thang.

04/08/2023

✨ T H E GOLDEN H O U R ✨

The first hour after you’ve birthed your baby. The first hour of their new life. the first hour of motherhood.

✨It is the most precious moment life has to offer and it is crucial you spend it together. No interruption.

✨You have spent the last 9 months as one🤰🏼 It is this time you both biologically need to adjust by connecting.

✨Skin to Skin ✨ immediately holding your baby to your chest is so important! Your heart beat, your smell, your warmth, your voice is your babies home! Do not NOT hesitate to hold your baby close straight away, it will undoubtably settle a baby that is in shock to its new harsh environment.

✨ A mothers blood supply will rush to her chest as a biological response to keep baby warm ✨

✨ A baby will start to search for its mothers breast in this time! They nuzzle and inch toward the ni**le. At This time, mother and baby sensing each other will kick start her breast feeding journey!

✨ A mother experiences the biggest rush of OXYTOCIN (the ‘love’) hormone in this time. Which is why a lot of mothers explain the RUSH of love they experience when meeting their baby. Chemical or spiritual, it’s true. The cosmic bond begins!

✨ All baby and mother checks CAN WAIT!! This is medically important!! ✨

✨A baby won’t spontaneously grow an inch or change in weight in that hour, so ask for privacy, dim the lights, turn the heating up and stop time mama. It’s a core moment ✨

02/08/2023

JUST BECAUSE ITS NATURAL, DOESN’T MEAN IT COMES NATURALLY 🙌🏻

We’ve all been there mama. You’re in the milky trenches right now finding your groove. Here’s a few things that may help a boobie melt down.

1. Try a new or different position, babies can’t communicate if they’re uncomfortable in a certain hold. Try a new position or a change of environment. New seat, more upright. Give yourself more support to give support. It’s amazing what a little switcheroo can do.

2. Skin to skin is King. Release all that oxytocin from holding baby to your chest. A newborn doesn’t recognise that it’s a separate being yet. The soothing effect will calm you both and get the flow flowing like magic!

3. Honestly this one is easy to forget but aim that ni**le to the nose and baby will take the cue and open wide, allowing more ni**le in for a good latch.

Chant in your head ‘tummy to tummy, nip to nose’

4. Feed the Feeder! You need to eat to keep your strength up and your supply up. You lose roughly between 300-600 cals a day from feeding.
Save the choccy bar for the night feeds to look forward to the fix on a long night of Netflix and Nursing.

5. This one is important. Studies show that mothers who receives support and encouragement during breast feeding have a higher chance of continuing past 6 weeks. Support her, make her feel safe in public and let her know you have her back. Grabbing a water goes a long way.

6. If everything fails, this applies to all problems with small children - get in the bath. You’ve got the skin to skin, the warm healing water for unsettled tummy’s, it’s the closest thing to being back in your tummy! Warm water will always help milk flow
too! It’s probably my favourite hack!

7. You’re both probably knackered so go back to bed. Even if you don’t sleep you and your baby’s bodies can relax a bit. Tummy to tummy, no pressure and hey presto - a latch! Or a wonderful snooze together safely 🫶🏻

It’s hard to know that it’s a perfectly natural beautiful process. Because it is hard for most mothers! We’ve all sat there sweating, covered in milk, feeling like we’re failing.
Week by week the struggle fades. TRUST ME, YOU’VE GOT THIS!

01/08/2023

🤱🏼Happy Breast Feeding Week Mamas! 🤱🏼

HOW does milk production work?

WHEN does it start?

Simply put Milk production is a ‘USE IT OR LOSE’ process.
The more often baby nurses, the more milk you will make!

Breast milk production happens in stages. This process is called

✨LACTOGENESIS✨

…Sounds like Phil Collins made an album for cravendale doesn’t it 🤣

👉🏻The first stage occurs half way through pregnancy where women will begin to make COLOSTRUM (babies first milk)

When women birth their placenta, they experience a drop in a hormones activating the second stage of Lactogensis! This stage is where mum creates large milk supplies. We often refer to it as ‘Milk coming in’
And though the second stage begins 30-40 hours after birth, mothers usually experience the breast FULLNESS 2-3 days after birth!

Both of these two stages are hormonally driven. They happen whether a mother is breast feeding or not!

👉🏻 The THIRD stage of LACTOGENESIS is the maintenance stage. Whereby a mother controls her supply through nursing. A mother can produce milk indefinitely as long as her breasts continue to be drained of milk.

Breast milk contains a whey protein called FIL (feedback inhibitor lactation). FIL is responsible for slowing milk production when breast is full.
Milk production SPEEDS up when the breast is emptied and less FIL is present.

⚡️FULL Breast = SLOWER milk production ⚡️

⚡️EMPTY breast = FASTER milk production ⚡️

Any questions? Drop them in the comments! Or shoot me a message if you’re looking for a postnatal Doula with breast feeding knowledge!

📸

31/07/2023

🫶🏻Continuous Care 🫶🏻

We live in a fast paced world built for convenience. Our maternity services are so strained. Staff shortages and sickness sadly do not equate to continuous care.

I meet a lot of women who have seen up to 10 + different midwives throughout their pregnancy and birth. Birth notes lost or not updated. Measurements taken by different midwives. Individualised care slipping through the cracks of a system which is reaching its absolute limit…. But pregnancy is ENTIRELY about the individual and their personal data. Not one shoe fits all. And that should be respected.

Could you go to the toilet in front of a complete stranger, revealing your privates and trust them with your body? Well that’s labour!

During labour women are routinely examined and touched by care providers they have only just met. Midwives and obstetricians aren’t afforded the luxury of time to build a rapport of trust with every patient.
Our bodies have an instinctive reaction to that.

So we have to to be responsible about what we can prepare for. Every single pregnant person deserves to have support!! People around them who know them and their ✨birth preferences ✨
Your birthing partner is immensely important for this exact reason.

A doula can be a continuous support to you both (or a solo birth). Giving you that
🫱🏻‍🫲🏾Continuous care 🫱🏻‍🫲🏾 that you need at most crucial and vulnerable time of your life.
It can change your birth!
Having someone in your corner supporting you and advocating your choices in a peaceful way, will give a labouring person a safe familiar presence to birth comfortably.

30/07/2023

It’s not as woo woo as it sounds!
We’re not Derren Brown-ing your birth.
We’re also not a coven of witches performing spells…. BUT it is magical! ✨
Here I am, having just received my diploma from KGHypnobirthing. As practitioners we study up on birth A LOT! We read the current guidance and we love a birth statistic. We also educate ourselves on all the pros in the game. We can sign post any assistance and detail every risk and benefit until all the cows come home.

✨ Hypnobirthing is a practice that trains the mind to release FEAR

✨ Educating women/persons to understand their Birthing physiology

✨Where the mind leads, the body follows! Hypnobirthing teaches ways of allowing the mind to relax in order to let the body do what it is made to do.

✨ A range of breathing techniques, visualisations, audios and scripts, affirmations and physical techniques are taught in order to facilitate a calm positive outcome.

✨ It prepares women and partners to know what to expect and how to prepare their birthing space and birth preferences.

✨ the practices are not just for ‘natural’ or ‘normal’ birth. They are for any birth and beyond! I use them every day still and I’m not pregnant!

✨ Evidence based science! You will receive birthing biology lessons 🤓

✨With knowledge comes POWER. High levels of empowerment for your birth happen when you’re fully INFORMED!

30/07/2023

Honestly isn’t it about time we stopped the madness?

Due dates are routinely given to pregnant women at their 12 week scan and though at first may seem exciting, they soon turn into a deadline, all goal to reach, a pressure cooker if you will… But why do we give them if they are notoriously inaccurate ??

The due date calculation used to this day comes from and Obstetrician in the 1800’s named Franz Karl Neagle, who created ‘Neagle’s rule’.

It is determined by taking the first day of your last period, subtract 3 months, then add 1 week and 1 year on.
This calculation is based on a cycle being exactly 28 days long.

… I don’t know about you but I never tracked my cycles before my first baby so I would always cringe at that medical question. So I guess and then the doctor had another inaccuracy to go off.
Also I’m convinced only female unicorns have a cycle of exactly 28 days.

The obsession with 40 weeks is a ROUGH average at best. And it’s actually quite damaging mentally and physically to a pregnant mother.
It puts undue social and physical pressure for the body and baby to keep to a schedule.
When a mother is considered ‘overdue’ it leads to an k creased chance in induction and intervention.

So let’s rewrite the script.
Let’s give ourselves✨ Due Seasons ✨or ✨due windows ✨

Also TOP TIP 💡 Never tell anyone your estimated due date! Instead say ‘baby due next summer’ so that nobody can bombard you with the “is the baby here yet???”

The Doting Doula

15/08/2023

04/08/2023

02/08/2023

01/08/2023

31/07/2023

30/07/2023

30/07/2023

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