the doula in your corner
Services
The full perinatal package
(Perinatal is the period from when you become pregnant to a year after birth)
This is the foundation of the package - it can be added to. Virtual package also available.
Antenatal:
* 3 sessions in person or over Zoom, usually 2/3 hours
* Weekly check-ins from 36w (this could be a five minute chat on the phone, longer if needed)
* This is a combination of emotional support, option/problem exploration and practical tools
* Discussing your birth background
* Drafting birth plans should you decide to transfer
* Planning for your fourth trimester
* Demonstrate the rebozo and ways to use it during your pregnancy, birth and post-partum
* Email/phone/text contact throughout pregnancy when needed - whether or not they feel pregnancy related, your feelings are relevant to your antenatal phase.
Birth:
* On call for you from 39 weeks to be within 90 minutes of you (gestation week can be changed!)
* You might want quiet support, your doula in the corner of your room, holding space
* You might want to talk, or have physical support like using a rebozo
* You might like me to help your partner to directly support you.
* You might want support that involves helping with the kids and preparing you food and drinks - it really is whatever is needed at the time
* Freebirth, midwife-attended home birth, MLU and hospital birth are all supported
Post partum:
Over the next weeks, emotional and practical support work in tandem
* Those early days may be when we spend time simply being, and witnessing the baby’s presence and your transition into motherhood with this baby
* Talking through the birth and your current feelings
* Encouraging you as you know the best for your baby
* Breastfeeding and combination feeding support
* Information if needed about baby sleep patterns and development
* Light household tasks - hanging washing, tidying up, washing up
* Holding the baby if you’d like to have a bath/nap/yoga session and watching over other children
* Rebozo relaxation with your music/candles
* Going out for walks with you
£1295 (antenatal/birth)-£1750(antenatal/birth/postpartum)
Payment plans are welcome and reduced costs are available
The time will come when you realise you wanted your doula to be beside you and no longer do…..I still hope you'd send a photo on your child's birthday or special occasions though!
Additional hours are usually booked at £28/hr, 2 hours at a time. You may wish to also have a parent/mother celebration, often called a blessingway, or an Infant Celebration
Jump to: Doula package
Jump to: Mother/Parent celebrations
Jump to: Infant celebrations
Parent/Mother celebration package
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The mother/parent celebration is based on the tradition of an indigenous people's blessingway, or a mother blessing across Europe. The celebration of the mother or parent is one that used to be known in England and is becoming more common again as we begin to reclaim what has been forgotten
In practical terms, this is all about you. A coming together of your circle of trusted friends and family, to invest the time and energy to focus on this change in your life. The creation of a parent, for some it is the feminine power, for some it is feeling a need for connection to their circle whilst they grow.
We will gather as a group, often in your home but it might be a field, a friend's home, a village hall. We'll light candles in the centre of the circle, and decorate a centrepiece with seasonal flora and leaves.
The circle might have poems, your guests might talk about how they know you, their wishes and intentions for you. Everyone can create a series of affirmation cards for you to use in labour but also during post partum time when you're in the fourth trimester. You might wish to use a bead line for focusing on when you meditate or as a tactile calming tool, and ask everyone to bring a bead.
One of the important moments is the thread circle, when a ball of wool , or soft like sari silk, is passed between each person, wound around wrists or ankles. The thread is often red, symbolic of the red tents of periods and uteruses and feminine power. It might be a colour that you are attracted to, teal or mustard or pale green. The thread represents the bonds you hold with your circle and the lineage of your family of women and birthing people that lead to you, growing and nurturing a child yourself. The thread is cut so that everyone can tie their wool around their wrist or ankle and think of you each time they see it until your baby is born. If this ceremony is for a parent who is not carrying the pregnancy, the connection and lineage still flows.
Usually after this moment, we end the celebration by moving to the food! Everyone contributes to the food table, delicious and nourishing food. I'll stay with you after the celebration to clear up the items and perhaps help sort the cards for hanging up and so on
If this event is online, I host it via Zoom and I'll help you do a little more preparation to ensure that we have the items in front of you that people have posted or create during the celebration to gather afterwards.
£75
Infant celebration
You may wish to have a short ceremony that takes the time to pause in the busy fourth trimester and focus on your baby and their place in the world. Parents often bury the placenta at the ceremony, read a poem, plant a flower or herb with selected items. In many cultures, the items buried with the placenta, or cord stump, indicate your hopes for your child - sea shells for travelling, rose petals for love, perhaps a memento from a special event in your life.
£50
Areas I cover:
Banbury, Bicester, Brackley, Southam, Broughton, Adderbury, Twyford, Bodicote, Fartinghoe, Oxford, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Chacombe, Hanwell, Wroxton, Woodford Halse, Byfield, Edge Hill, Radway, Bloxham. Basically, everywhere within 30-40 minutes of Banbury!
