Doulas of the Roundtable

It's the 200th Episode!  Eva is back at the table and we're catching up on everything that's changed since season 7, including some big doula career transitions for both of us. As doulas, we sit in the mess with our clients all the time. Plans fall apart, bodies do their own thing, and we help families find their footing anyway. It turns out we have to do the same thing in our own lives and busine...

Postpartum loneliness is common. It's also easy to miss. A client can have a clean house, a full fridge, and family around and still feel alone. In this episode, we take a look at the reasons postpartum can feel so lonely. We explore questions that get past "good, tired," when we ask how a client is doing. We also discuss the clients and partners who seem to have it all handled and under control....

SEO for doulas sounds technical, expensive, and easy to put on the back burner. Meanwhile a family in your town is searching for a doula right now. Your name may not be anywhere on the first page. Throwing up a website and hoping people find it is keeping a lot of good doulas invisible. This is the next part of the Doula Business Blueprint Series. In this episode we take a look at what SEO is in e...

Once Pitocin is started, the approach has often been to keep it running through delivery. That protocol, has been built into standard induction and augmentation approaches over time. New research on Pitocin discontinuation once active labor is achieved complicates that approach. There are three major studies we can now look to on this topic. Depending on interpretation, they neither fully support...

You can do everything right in a doula business relationship and still miss the doula business red flags that may show up along the way. These patterns rarely look dramatic at first. They look like warmth. Or like being told you're valued, essential, part of the inner circle. By the time it starts to look and feel different, you've already committed. This episode breaks down the specific behaviors...

Most doulas will tell you their ideal client is anyone who is pregnant or postpartum. Without a well defined doula client market every marketing decision, pricing decision, and visibility strategy is aimed at no one in particular. Having an undefined market is much like shouting into a crowd and hoping the right person happens to be listening. And this approach is preventing most doulas from build...

Doula trainings don't often teach a neurodivergent doula how to adapt. Especially when it comes to running a business or client interactions. They don't teach a system that already fits how your brain will run your business and interact with your clients and community. You either force yourself into someone else's, or you build your own from the ground up. Most doulas don't know what building thei...

Birth trauma is more common than most doulas realize. Most doula trainings are not preparing doulas to spot it. In this episode, I sit down with Jamie Bodily, MS, LPC , to talk about what the research actually says about how often birth trauma happens, and why the numbers are higher than most people assume. Our conversation covers what birth trauma can look like from a client's perspective. Some s...

Most doulas were taught that oxytocin is the love hormone. It's also the hormone that initiates and sustains the labor and birth process. That's true. And it's only part of the story. Oxytocin bonds us to our people. It also makes us wary of everyone else. The same hormone flooding a laboring person's body is running a continuous background check on every person in that space. In-group. Out-group....

For doulas, fetal positioning and pelvic anatomy are topics most training programs introduce but don't fully explore. You were likely taught the four pelvic types. Did you know that classification system is almost a hundred years old and modern research tells us pelvic shape doesn't work that way. The pelvis has three distinct planes. The baby navigates all three through seven specific movements....

Most conversations about unassisted birth focus on the family's autonomy and the right to choose. This episode looks at the doula's side of that conversation. A doula who says yes to supporting an unassisted birth is making an autonomous choice too. And most of them are saying yes without understanding the potential legal, professional, and personal consequences that may come with it. There is no...

A doula business plan is something most doulas never think to create. Many assume it's for bigger businesses, investors, or bank loans. Truth is, it isn't. A business plan is the document that tells you whether your pricing makes sense, if the right clients can find you, and if what you're building will last. Without one, most doulas are making decisions without a solid business foundation to buil...

The phrases "Trust your body" and "Trust birth" are embedded in doula language and doula culture. Most of us have never stopped to question them. In this episode we look at how these phrases, used without knowing a client's history, can cause real harm.  The research on chronic conditions before and during pregnancy, birth trauma rates, and the connection between rising comorbidities and cesarean...

Why do cesarean rates keep rising and what does that actually mean for the families you support? We have to start by breaking down the cesarean rate conversation the birth world has been getting wrong. From the origins of the WHO 15% figure what it actually said, what it was designed to measure, and why we've been misapplying it for 40 years. We also need to understand to the difference between to...

Every doula has left a birth or ended a postpartum shift questioning whether their doula skills were actually effective. Nothing went wrong. The client was okay. But something wasn't received the way you intended and you couldn't stop thinking about it on the drive home. Most doulas push that feeling down and move on to the next client. Some spiral into self-criticism. Neither option builds skill...

Knowing how to get doula clients is one of the first real questions after training ends. And most new doulas are getting the same answer. Network with other doulas. Reach out to providers. Wait. That advice is well-intentioned. Most doula training does not effectively prepare you for what comes after it. How do the families who need you actually find you? Becoming a doula and building a doula busi...

The cascade of interventions is often taught like interventions are a row of dominoes. Pitocin leads to epidural. Epidural leads to cesarean. Once the first one is tipped, the rest will inevitably follow. That might sound logical at first. But it can also quietly teach fear and shape bias in the way doulas support clients. This conversation takes a hard look at this belief, the message it sends, a...

Supporting induction means knowing how to support what is actually happening. Many clients are scheduled without clear information about why, how induction begins, what options remain, or how long it may take. Then ripening takes a day or two, the plan changes, and disappointment builds because the expectation was unrealistic. This conversation puts induction back where it belongs: informed consen...

Doula tools can help, but they don't keep you grounded. A big birth bag can turn into a crutch when labor gets loud, space gets tight, and you feel pressure to find an immediate solution. Some doulas over-offer, over-talk, and reach for tools too fast. Then a client shushes them, moves their hands away, or rejects a comfort measure, and it feels personal. It isn't. It's feedback. Good support adju...

Core doula skills shape the whole room, not your bag of tricks. You do not build strong support by collecting more tools. You build it through presence, attunement, communication, and timing, in real time, with real clients. These skills show up when things feel tense. When plans change. When your client looks at you for answers you cannot give. When the room speeds up and you feel your own nervou...

Professional Identity shapes how clients experience you, especially when things get hard. It shows up under pressure. In the room. In the moments you do not get to rehearse. This conversation is not about branding or personality. It is about how you practice. In this episode, we talk through: Why skill alone does not create trust How stress reveals your default way of working Four common practice...

Confidence grows through action, not intention. Did you know that confidence as a process? You do not wake up with it. You build it by doing the work, taking a step of faith, and sometimes missing the mark. Confidence forms through experience, reflection, and repetition. It develops when you act, before you feel certain. Mistakes strengthen your judgment, and real growth happens when you keep show...

Readiness Is Not a Feeling In this episode, we talk about readiness and why waiting to feel confident keeps so many doulas stuck. Readiness is not a feeling. It is an action. We break down why readiness is built through experience, not certainty, and why fear does not mean you are unprepared. You'll hear why mentorship alone does not create confidence, how real growth happens through doing, and wh...

Doulas of the Roundtable wraps up season seven with a look back and a clear look ahead. In this episode, you hear our top ten most listened to episodes of all time and why these conversations continue to matter to doulas at every stage of practice. We also share an important update about the podcast. Eva will be stepping away from the show. We want to take a moment and honor Eva's voice, insight,...

Enjoy one of our most popular episodes to date.  What do you wish you knew before becoming a doula? This is a question that we see frequently from those considering birth work or those who have just entered the field. Working with growing families is the part of the work that most have at least a loose idea about. But when I think about what I wish I knew it's the practicalities that many often fa...