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 businesses, and it's a whole lot harder when the mess is yours. Eva shares what's new in her job. Angela left her curriculum role with a national certification organization and pivoted hard. Now she's building her own programs and courses and gives a first look at what's coming. On the consulting side, she starts with the doula in front of her and builds every plan around their real circumstances. At Tucson Doulas, Angela changed the labor team model, raised prices, and is considering selling the agency. If doula career transitions have you in the middle of something you didn't totally plan for, pull up a chair. You're in good company.

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. We wrap up with talking aabout what happens when the doula relationship ends. Research shows some families feel a real loss when our support stops. Join us as we explore how postpartum doulas can help clients withe postpartum loneliness and build connections that lasts beyond the contract.

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 easy to understand terms and the four places it belongs. We alsoa explore paid ads and paid followers, including what they will and won't do for your business. This one is for the doula who cringes at the word SEO. It's also for the doula whose website isn't doing what it's supposed to do. Inspiring families to reach out to learn more about what you offer. Join us as we break down SEO for doulas and show you how to help local families find you.  

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 nor fully refute it. This episode breaks down what an effective labor pattern actually looks like by research standards. Provides information on when and how to raise the possibility of Pitocin discontinuation once active labor is achieved with a client before labor starts. We also covers what to do with evidence that pulls in more than one direction at once. Join me as I walk through what three different studies found, where they disagree, and what that means for how you support a client through this conversation. Sources: Whitley J, Burd J, Doering M, Kelly J, Frolova A, Raghuraman N. "Reduced risk of cesarean delivery with oxytocin discontinuation in active labor: a systematic review and meta-analysis." American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. 2025;233(1):25-39.e11. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajog.2025.03.015 Jiang D, Yang Y, Zhang X, Nie X. "Continued versus discontinued oxytocin after the active phase of labor: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis." PLOS ONE. 2022;17(5):e0267461. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0267461 Boie S, Glavind J, Uldbjerg N, Steer PJ, Bor P, CONDISOX trial group. "Continued versus discontinued oxytocin stimulation in the active phase of labour (CONDISOX): double blind randomised controlled trial." BMJ. 2021;373:n716. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.n716

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 that show up when a business relationship isn't built on equal footing, whether it's a certifying body, an agency, a mentor, a business partner, or a doula partnership. Approval that has to be repeatedly earned. Generosity that gets punished either way. No acceptable reason to say no. Roles that stay deliberately unclear. Refusals with nothing offered in return. Opportunities given to some people and not others, with no real explanation. Join me as I walk through what to watch for before you sign anything, and what to actually do if you recognize yourself already in a business relationship where these doula business red flags exist.  

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 building a sustainable business. This is is Part 2 of the Doula Business Blueprint Series. In this episode we dive into who your ideal client actually is, how to build their profile whether or not you have a long track record of clients to draw on, and how that profile becomes the living document that guides all the other decisions you make regarding your business.. Join me as as I show you how to define your doula client market and explain why that kind of clarity is necessary to the long term success of your business.

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 their own adaptive system could even look like. The impact of masking through a client visit to the point your cheeks are sore from smiling. Back to back visits that left no time for rest and recovery. Navigating the emails, phone calls, consultations, client visits, the day to day of running a business and making sure that that you keep all the balls in the air.  What I built for myself was to ensure success. Systems for scheduling and follow-through. Boundaries around client interactions that let me show up consistently instead of running on willpower alone. Join me as I walk through what I built, why I built it, and what your own version might start with first.

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 signs are obvious. Some show up weeks later and get missed because nobody was looking for them. Jamie breaks down the other mental health factors that may show up alongside it, and why doulas need to know the difference between what's within our scope and what needs a referral. She also walks through how to use the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale as a screening tool, and which questions should trigger an immediate referral. There's also the crisis piece. If a client is in a current crisis, we don't have time to research resources from scratch. We need to already know where to send them. This one is for every doula who has left a client visit wondering if what they just witnessed was normal, or something more.

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. Safe. Not safe. This process has real time influence on how labor unfolds. And most doulas have never been taught that. This episode takes an up close look into what oxytocin is actually doing during pregnancy, labor, and postpartum. It challenges the bias most doulas carry into Pitocin inductions. And it reframes what connection, prenatal visits, backup doulas, and our presence actually mean biologically. Join me as we explore the biology of trust and how oxytocin influences every client relationship you build.  

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. And pelvic shape is the single most influential factor in how that happens. Pelvic anatomy also influences posterior positioning in ways most doulas have never considered. The gap between what you were taught and what you can still learn will change how you support laboring clients. Join me as we look at pelvic anatomy and fetal positioning in a way your training probably never did.