Doulas of the Roundtable

As you navigate your doula career, you begin to develop your doula voice. This development often requires you to identify and confront the fears and concerns surrounding birth work. In this two-part series, we start by identifying some of the fears and concerns, and then in part two, we will be giving advice on how to overcome these fears which will allow you to grow your own authentic doula voice...

Empathy and compassion are two of the foundational elements of birth work. Both can have a positive and negative impact on birth workers and their clients. In this episode, we discuss the difference between empathy and compassion and the potential benefits and drawbacks of each.

COVID-19 UPDATE: Birthworkers, how are you holding up during this pandemic? Is your business at a standstill? Are you struggling to find clients? Or is your business booming? Come join us as we discuss how to make money and network during the pandemic to keep your business relevant in your community.

As doula trainers, we see people from all walks of life interested in becoming a doula. Over time a pattern seemed to emerge. Come join us as we discuss the most common reasons many individuals come to doula work and the pros and cons of these reasons.

If you hang around doulas long enough and you'll hear it. Those two words that seem so innocent and inviting, doula sisters (or doula sisterhood). But take a closer look and you're likely to find that the notion of the doula sisterhood has a darker meaning and intent. How can you have a sisterhood when there are doulas who are excluded? Come join us as we break down the idea of "sisterhood" and di...

In this episode, Eva and Angela along with their guest, Kelly Rutan, talk about postpartum support. We discuss the role a postpartum doula plays in a family's life. Kelly helps us take a closer look into what some postpartum families are dealing with and the different ways a doula's support can help. Join us and our special guest as we tackle this important topic.  

In this episode, Eva and Angela tackle the topic of certification. We talk about things like is it important, does it matter, do client care, does our industry care.  As doula trainers, we are passionate about helping new doulas thrive in their birth work, so it was only a matter of time before we tackled this topic. Join us!

Since the start of this podcast, we have wanted to do an episode on Male Doulas. There seems to be a bit of stigma and judgment surrounding male doulas and their role in birth work. Join us as we sit down with Kelly Carrington, a male doula, and discuss this topic. Male doulas may be in the minority but they have a place in this work and it is our hope to see more of them feel welcome to enter thi...

In this episode, we discuss informed consent & decisions and what a doula's role is in their client's journey through it. We tackle questions like how can we help & when is the right time to offer that help? Is informed consent & decisions more important to you or your client? How do you provide the information they want without bringing in judgment and bias?  Join us as we discuss this important...

In honor of Cesarean Awareness Month, we discuss the ways to support clients through cesarean birth. We sit down with Christi Banks to discuss all the different ways we can support our clients through planned, unplanned, and emergent cesarean births. We still have a place on the birth team and there is still support to be had.

It's World Doula Week 2020!  Join us in our discussion of how we plan to celebrate World Doula Week while we navigate unchartered territory that is COVID-19. 

In the rapidly evolving landscape that is life in March of 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic as our reality, doulas across the globe are facing many hard choices. Come join us in this special episode as we discuss navigating our home and business lives amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Supporting Loss: Join us as we welcome guest Annie Willems to discuss the tender topic of supporting clients through loss. In this episode, we discuss supporting families through expected and unexpected loss. As doulas it is important to identify our biases and triggers well before we are called to support our clients through the loss of their baby. Trigger warning: Due to the sensitive nature of...

Black maternal health is a hot and important topic in the birth community today. Join us and our guest, Samantha Griffin, as we discuss serving black clients, epigenetics, allostatic load and how it's entirely possible that doula care may not result in the outcomes that are hoped for. 

We sit down with Aisha Fanning to discuss how to navigate parenting and doula work. The question of how one navigates their own children and their responsibilities of doula work is one of the questions that gets asked quite a bit. We asked Aisha to be on so that we could shed a bit of light on it can be done. 

In this episode, we focus on two questions, "When will I make money?" and "How soon can I leave my other job?"  We dive into both of these questions and peel back what it looks like to make money from our passion. 

Welcome to Season 2!  We kick the new season off with talking about shadowing and mentorship. When you are first starting out it's very easy to want to watch someone else do the work for jumping in yourself or have someone there to help guide you as you get hands-on.  In the doula world that can be a little tricky and not always the best for the client. In this episode, we discuss the pros and con...

As we come to the end of 2019, we also come to the end of Season 1! In this episode, we look back on the episodes we have recorded, the impact we have seen, and then we shift our focus to Season 2 and 2020. 

In this episode, we talk about writing birth stories and giving gifts. Why doulas do this, how it helps or hurts, and is it necessary to our success with our clients. It's a topic that comes up now and again and we wanted to chat about why doulas do this. 

In this episode we discuss inductions. How our support can look, the feelings around inductions, and how to navigate medical professionals as well. 

In this episode, we talk about Virtual Doulas. Someone who provides emotional and education doula support but are not physically present. We explore how virtual doulas fit into the doula world and the impact they have with clients. 

As doulas, our role is to support. We support physically, emotionally, and educationally. Sometimes it can be tough to determine if the pain your client is feeling is emotional or physical. In this episode, we talk that through. We discuss the importance of keeping track of both of these types of pains and how to navigate them. 

Doula Philosophies. What does that mean? Do you have one? Do you allow them to dictate which clients you support? In this episode, we talk about some of the philosophies that we know doulas subscribe to and the reasons why. We try to unpack the reasons why doulas support some clients vs. others.  

In this episode we explore the partner's perspective with one of our own Tucson Doulas' clients. Join us as Jo Jo shares what he thought a doula was. What lead Jo Jo and his partner to hire a doula. How they found a doula to interview local to them. If you have ever wondered how to reach partners and help them see the value of hiring a doula for support through pregnancy and birth, this is the epi...

Interventions. We all know about them and we all have clients that use them everyday. In this episode, we explore the pros and cons of intervention use. We talk about why our clients get them, how one doesn't always lead to the other, and how we, as doulas, sometimes allow our biases to cloud the support we provide.