Doula maintenance 101
If you have any hope of sustaining your birth work career - whether you consider yourself a doula, a birth keeper or a midwife - you need to learn how to balance holding space for birthing people and families with your own commitments …. family, other work etc. You need to learn how to maintain yourself .. fill that cup to overflowing!
Being on call for a family for long periods of time and holding space for their birth and all the emotions that accompany it can take up huge amounts of your physical and emotional energy.
Its also important that we learn how to not take previous experiences into someone’s birth space as this can impact the way they will birth.
How we achieve both these things is an ongoing journey of self discovery.
Self care has become a bit of a tired phrase in recent times and tends to conjure up images of bubble baths and trips to the spa.
What I’m going to discuss below is a little more focused on the things we can do practically in our everyday lives to help maintain our energy and focus, and help us move that energy on once we’ve attended a birth.
Create routines - maintaining small routines whilst on call for a client is really important to be able to ground us in the familiarity of our life. You may think it’s impossible to stick to a routine whilst on call as you have to be always ready to drop everything and go at the last moment.
However having small routines helps to keep you present and top up your ever flowing cup. Think small moments … sometimes I like to journal, stretch before bed, I keep clothes for birth work at the end of my bed (in case I leave in the night) and a set in the car. I ensure I have coffee available (because I’m a caffine addict) and my car always has petrol when I’m on call.I ensure that my evening routine includes something that helps me to relax - bath, a good zombie movie (don’t judge), a great book, lighting a candle and turning down the lights a couple of hours before bed, going over the diary for the following day with my partner, clearing the kitchen and laying out breakfast items and kids clothes/ backpacks in case I’m not there in the morning. Small routines to maintain normality and my sanity.
Be aware of the energy you’re holding onto - how are you feeling about this upcoming birth? Excited, nervous, stressed. What are you holding onto from the previous birth(s) you were present at? What if your on call period starts to really drag on? Are you checking in with yourself about how you’re doing and the impact its having on your (and perhaps your family)? Are you willing this baby to put in an apperance? There’s nothing wrong with any of this but how are your going to release this energy before you step into the birth space?
Moving energy and staying grounded - two different elements that can be achieved through similar practices. Getting out of my head and into my body is the thing for me if I’m going to stay focused when attending this birth.
I like to move my body - dance, run, stretch, walk, ride (I love to ride horses) to feel my way back into my body. Do you have other practices that enable you to shift energy? Mediation, breath work, perhaps? Do you journal? Do you need to laugh or scream or cry to release what you’re holding onto?Give your body and mind an MOT - and build this into your birth work! Into the cost of my birth services I have incorporated the cost of a massage - or osteopathy treatment. As I’m aging, and since becoming a mother of 3, and horse riding addict I notice what aches, what feels tired and I know that in order to maintain myself I need regular osteopathy treatment! This is not a luxury … this is part of ensuring I can maintain the work long term (and I’ve been doing this for 12 years through babies, house moves, caring for parents, loosing parents an growing a doula training business). I couldn’t have maintained my doula work without looking after my body and mind.