Expert Birth Support. Holistic Doula Training.

If you’ve found yourself searching ‘how to become a doula’ chances are something is stirring within you. This work calls you - often after a powerful birth, a difficult one, or with a fire in your belly at how birth and maternity care feels right now. But how do you actually become a doula in the UK?

A birthkeeper holds space for the unfolding of birth as a natural, physiological, and spiritual experience. Birthkeepers draw from ancient wisdom, intuition, and practical skills to provide holistic pregnancy and birth support that nurtures the whole person ; mind, body, and spirit, and offer a ‘wise woman’ presence during labour and birth.

In 1999, as a student midwife, I read two books that changed everything for me: Wise Woman Herbal  for the Childbearing Year by Susun Weed, and Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin. Alongside these were the works of anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd who named the technocratic model of care in which I was learning and the holistic model that I strived to practice. These each created a foundation for the midwifery that resonated in my bones and their words gave shape to an approach that still anchors my work today: the Holistic Wise Woman model.

A midwife is a registered medical professional who monitors the wellbeing of women, birthing people and their babies during pregnancy, birth and postpartum. A doula is a non medical support who offers education and advocacy for those usually engaging with the medical system. And a birthkeeper is a non medical, holistic support, they often, but not always work with those choosing freebirth.