Earthside Studios - Birth + Postpartum Doula Support

Earthside Studios - Birth + Postpartum Doula Support Call or send us a dm for more details and pricing/package rates!

Earthside Studios provides birth & postpartum doula services and pro bono pregnancy loss support/photography to families in Central MN and the Twin Cities metro areas.

I’m mortified to have just discovered that all of the contact form submissions from my website have been going into my s...
11/03/2025

I’m mortified to have just discovered that all of the contact form submissions from my website have been going into my spam folder for who knows how long (at least the past month). 😖

If you tried to contact me via my website and did not get a response, I am SO SORRY! If it was longer than 30 days ago when you sent it, my email account automatically deleted them before I ever saw them (ugh)—if you’re still looking for support or have questions, please submit a new contact form via my website or reach out to me directly at earthsidestudios@Gmail.com or text/call (320) 224-8677.

For now, I have resolved the issue and contact form submissions should be going into my inbox moving forward.

Signed, an embarrassed Saralicia Waugh 🫠

10/29/2025

Labor can sure be unpredictable sometimes!

Did you have a precipitous (fast) birth? Share your story below!

A new addition coming to Earthside Studios: Pregnancy Loss Support/Bereavement Photography Services 🕊️As some of you may...
10/13/2025

A new addition coming to Earthside Studios: Pregnancy Loss Support/Bereavement Photography Services 🕊️

As some of you may know, I lost my dear son, Andrew Liam, at 15 weeks and 6 days on March 23rd, 2025. I had the greatest honor of receiving the absolute best support from our church family, friends, and loved ones, which opened up a new perspective for me. I was so inspired by the overwhelming support my family received that I’m being called to help others who are going through similar struggles of loss, including miscarriage, stillbirth, NICU babies who aren’t expected to make it, and infant loss within the first year of life.

At this time, I am not currently offering birth/motherhood photography services, however, I am making an exception for bereavement photography. I have recently been led to bereavement sessions for families, and bereavement photographers in Central MN are extremely hard to come by. These photos are crucial for families to help process the loss of their child and have something tangible to remember them by. I’m helping families gain access to true documentary style imagery to keep their child’s legacy going.

If you or someone you know is experiencing pregnancy loss at ANY gestation, I offer my bereavement/remembrance photography sessions in hospital or at home at no cost to our community, in honor of my sweet boy, Andrew Liam. Pregnancy loss doula support is also offered to you before, during, and/or ongoing after birth at no cost (families can choose whatever services best fit their family’s needs: photography, doula support, or both).

My goal is to make sure no family ever feels like they have to suffer in silence and that they can grieve in a healthy way with access to resources and adequate support. I get it, I see you, I hold space for you. 🤍

Please share this post with any family who is currently navigating or has recently been through pregnancy/infant loss.

We don’t talk about loss. Why? Honestly, it’s a simple reason. We have become SO disconnected from death in our culture....
10/12/2025

We don’t talk about loss. Why? Honestly, it’s a simple reason. We have become SO disconnected from death in our culture.

We no longer take care of our loved ones after they’ve passed away.

We do not prepare their bodies like we once did.

A lot of the times, we aren’t present at the time of death (when it’s an expected death and it’s possible to be with our loved one). They’re simply whisked away and you’re told coldly that they didn’t make it and you’re expected to wrap your mind around that news without seeing their body for that necessary level of closure to make it make sense.

And most of the time, we don’t even talk about death. It’s a taboo subject. There’s kind of a weird period of avoidance where people just don’t talk to you right after it happens because they literally don’t know what to say to you.

You’re expected to just “get over it” like it never happened. Like the person who’s no longer with us never impacted your life. As if their disappearance from the face of the earth never mattered. There’s no time or space to grieve—we’re just expected to keep going about our normal daily lives and keep our performance capabilities at 100%.

I say EFF THAT MENTALITY.

Why? Because people all over our country, around the world, people you’re close to, that random person you passed by in the car—they’ve all lost someone at some point. They’ve likely sat in silence and wept alone, because they didn’t feel safe to talk about it with someone. They didn’t feel safe to ask for the support that they desperately craved but didn’t have access to.

If you’ve gone through the loss of someone close to you, why should we expect parents who have lost their babies to suffer alone, when you know good and well how insurmountable grief can feel?

Yet, we live in a culture where a large percentage of parents are too SCARED to announce their pregnancies to anyone unless they’ve reached a made up benchmark of 12 weeks or beyond. Because if they miscarry that baby, they don’t feel safe enough to tell the world and try to gain support from friends, family, and other people in their circle. They don’t know that other people will care and help them because it’s not the norm in our society.

It’s time to change that. It’s time to reclaim our connection to death and integrate it back into our culture so we can stop suffering alone and in silence.

If you experience loss of any kind, find a trusted loved one and open up to them about it. Tell them how you feel. Don’t believe the lies that you have to grieve alone.

It’s not a flex to suffer alone. It’s a sign of a weak culture. Set aside your pride about asking people for help. You deserve to have a community to take care of you and help you pick up your broken pieces.

Next time someone close to you loses someone, don’t ask how you can help. Just start doing things for them, because honestly, most of the time they don’t even know what they need, and saying things like “let me know if I can help with anything” feels so empty and unproductive to the person even when your intentions are good. Because I can guarantee they’re never going to actually reach out and tell you how you can help them. Instead, bring them food/set up a meal train, show up to help clean their house, go over there and just BE with them—even if they don’t want to talk and you sit in silence. If you see any other areas that they need help with like childcare, dogsitting, etc. then step up and do it. Ease their burden as much as you can, and find more people in their circle to come help so you don’t take all of the load by yourself.

Things will never change if we don’t try. Let’s change how our society thinks and responds to death.

Twilight sleep was indeed a real part of history. These barbaric practices haunt me in my dreams as we advocate for empo...
10/08/2025

Twilight sleep was indeed a real part of history. These barbaric practices haunt me in my dreams as we advocate for empowering, family-centered births in modern times. Talk about spooky with Halloween coming up 😖

It’s National Midwifery Week! Let’s talk about the key differences between midwives and obstetricians (OB/GYNs).Midwives...
10/08/2025

It’s National Midwifery Week! Let’s talk about the key differences between midwives and obstetricians (OB/GYNs).

Midwives have a unique model of care for pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.

In a nutshell, midwives oversee patients who have *low risk* pregnancies, and most often practice outside of the hospital setting. They usually facilitate births taking place in patients’ homes or in freestanding birth centers. Some hospitals have nurse midwives on staff and can provide a less medicalized approach than physicians, however, hospital-based midwives work under obstetricians, which can be both limiting but also provide an opportunity for a more integrative, shared approach for care for patients who need to be more medically managed but desire the care of a midwife to the highest extent possible.

Midwives are highly skilled and provide comprehensive care that strongly focuses on nutrition during pregnancy for optimal outcomes, forming trusting relationships so patients feel safe, and discussing available options during birth and postpartum in-depth and talking about the risks and benefits, and so much more. Prenatal visits with midwives are typically much longer for more well-rounded care, which allows families to ask more questions and address goals and fears. Midwives typically spend much more time with patients during labor—homebirth midwives typically spend the majority of active labor with their patients.

Midwives are trained to always be on the lookout for any signs that complications may be arising so that they can transfer care appropriately to prevent more serious complications from taking place outside of the hospital setting. If things are going south, they tend to transfer care to hospital BEFORE it becomes serious (barring any sudden, unexpected complications).

Midwifery care is associated with better outcomes for mom and baby, and leads to more positive birth experiences collectively. Midwifery-led births tend to be more hands-off and mother-led.

There’s a reason why midwives practice differently than OBs: midwives specialize in physiological births and OBs specialize in high risk, medically managed births. They are surgeons.

OB/GYNs are trained to manage high-risk births. They typically have never seen a hands-off, physiological birth (which is why it’s important to know the difference between OBs and midwives if you want a natural birth experience).

OBs manage complications/emergencies, oversee inductions, and perform C-sections and other surgical procedures such as extensive vaginal tear repairs and D&Cs.

OBs typically have shorter prenatal visits and don’t touch as much on the topic of nutrition or birthing options (this is where doulas and childbirth education really come in so you can be prepared). They also tend to not spend a lot of time with patients during labor—in fact, they are often times only present during the moment of birth until the placenta is out and a full exam is performed to rule out tearing. They do not provide continuous care like midwives do.

Let me be clear: there’s a time and a place for OB/GYNs. They exist for the purpose of high-risk scenarios, and they are great at that. OBs save lives. BUT knowledge is power and you have to ask yourself, is birth an emergency to be medically managed? If you’re low risk, is a high-risk surgical specialist the best choice for your family to oversee your care?

You decide.

10/07/2025

At birth, ⅓ (or more) of your baby’s blood is still in the placenta.

That means if you immediately cut the cord, your baby is missing A LOT of blood.

If you were missing ⅓ (33%) of your blood, your heart and respiratory rates would increase, your blood pressure would drop, and you would become anxious and confused. If you lost 40% of your blood, all those symptoms would be worse and you would become lethargic.

If you lost more than 40% you would die.

So how long should you wait after birth to clamp the cord?

Ideally you would “wait for white”. This means the cord isn’t clamped until it has stopped pulsing and turned white because all of the blood is now inside the baby.
This is usually over 5 minutes (I’ve waited until the birth of the placenta with my two homebirths [about an hour]).

But delaying cord clamping for even 60 seconds has been shown to have benefits including:

👍 Increased hemoglobin
👍 Increased iron
👍 Increased blood pressure (early clamping means BP can be too low)
👍 Increased urinary output
👍 Increased body temperature (early clamping babies are colder)

If baby is having a slower transition to breathing outside the womb upon their birth, keeping them attached to the cord will also continue to provide them with oxygen until they begin breathing on their own.

Did you delay cord clamping with your babies?

To all of the families who resonate with this post, I pray peace, comfort, and healing finds you one day. 🙏❤️‍🩹You are n...
10/06/2025

To all of the families who resonate with this post, I pray peace, comfort, and healing finds you one day. 🙏❤️‍🩹

You are not alone.

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Rice, MN

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https://linktr.ee/earthsidestudiosbirth

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