Starting A Doula Business

This blog post is from NB doula Sarah Newman. Sarah is a valued member of the NB team but is also a relatively new birth and postnatal doula. This is her story of training, gaining her Nurturing Birth certification, doing voluntary postnatal work and finding her first clients, told in her own words...

I guess this story starts around 5 years ago…after working as a high level Executive Assistant for 13 years, I finally got sick of the corporate world and decided to blow up my life haha. Ok, let’s blame COVID, a bad boss and a divorce…but I realised there was much more I was meant to do with my life. After a couple years of travelling (eat, pray, love style), I went in search of a job which would allow me to work for myself, make a difference in the world and include my passions of community, psychology and birth. Someone mentioned doulas to me around this time and *BAM* I knew this was it.

In June 2023, I decided to take the plunge and booked on to the London in-person Doula Course. I hadn’t even had an enquiry call with Sarah, I just got the vibe that Nurturing Birth was the training for me and it was honestly the best decision I’ve ever made!

The course was over 4 days at a beautiful house in London; I was joined by 9 other doulas-to-be, all a mixture of ages with such a variety of life experience. Some had worked as midwifes or other NHS professionals, one was a nanny, and a few of us had no experience in the birth world at all. Some had kids already, and myself and others didn’t. The one thing all of us did have was a passion for birth and supporting people through the magical journey of becoming parents.

The week was so magical, we chatted, laughed, cried and learnt SO much. Sarah Sayer was our facilitator and she guided us through the week amazingly, sharing her experience and all of the things she’s learned throughout her career, as well as helping us recognise that we all already are doulas; no huge training required, our hearts were there to support women through this experience, and that’s the main aspect of doula support that we all already had within us.

We all didn’t want the week to end and promised to stay in touch to support each other through the journey of setting up our businesses. A WhatsApp group was set up within the first few days, and over a year later we’re still celebrating each other’s achievements, sharing business ideas and holding space for each other regularly.

After the course I dove into the post-coursework and chose a research topic which had always fascinated me – birth & postnatal practices in different cultures. The Nurturing Birth team provided ongoing support the whole way through to certification a few months later, and I was paired with the most amazing mentor who helped guide me along some of the aspects I found challenging (mostly self-belief and business setup hiccups).

Coincidentally, while completing the course, Sarah approached me and asked if I’d be interested in joining the NB team as their virtual assistant helping out with the company admin, which I jumped at the chance to do! Being surrounded by a passionate and inspiring team of doulas was such a great place to be while I navigated my path in the doula world.

After I’d received my certification and was a proudly graduated Nurturing Birth Doula was when the hard work began. I think as newly trained doulas we’re so full of passion and thoughts of changing the birth world, but totally forget that we’re also suddenly becoming self-employed and having to run a whole business by ourselves, which as someone who’s always worked for large companies can be quite daunting! If I’m totally honest my life didn’t suddenly change, and I actually decided to fly off to Australia for 9 months (much to the sadness of Sarah Sayer!).

While I was in Melbourne, I decided I still wanted to get my foot in the door of the doula world and contacted a local charity called the Multiple Birth Volunteer Service. They postnatally support local families who give birth to multiple babies (twins, triplets etc). I was paired up with a young single mum who’d recently given birth to twins, and honestly it was the most heart warming job I’d ever done. I visited her once or twice a week and helped her with whatever she needed. The early days were lots of letting her nap, juggling feeding and changing the babies and supporting her through the first times giving them baths and taking them out. Over the few months I was with her I watched her flourish into the most amazing mother, who was confident in her abilities and so grateful to have people around supporting her.

After returning from Australia, I knew it was time to throw myself into my doula business 100%. I applied to become part of the Doula UK mentoring program and chose a great mentor who I felt aligned well with my vision. Both within the Nurturing Birth training and my DUK mentoring, I was advised the same thing – get out and network with EVERYONE you can!! Now this is the hard bit as a new doula when you’re feeling a lack of confidence/experience, BUT, it was honestly the one thing that made the biggest difference. I decided to go through the Doula UK website and email EVERY doula within a 5 mile radius, asking them to meet up for a coffee and a chat, and 99% of them replied saying they’d love to.

The opportunities that opened up from just doing this were incredible…I was added to private WhatsApp & Facebook groups where doulas shared jobs, I was invited to events, meet-ups, Christmas parties…and within a couple of weeks I’d landed my first client. To all the new doulas reading this, my one piece of advice is just get yourself out there, everyone’s been in your position before and they know how it feels. All the doulas out there are fighting the same battle of trying to make birth better for all, and another one joining the team is going to be warmly welcomed!

During the first few weeks of setting up my business I focused a lot of time on business admin and my online presence – putting the ‘real you’ out there via your website, Instagram, Facebook, or whatever you choose to use is so important. If you’re terrible with technology & admin, there’s loads of resources online for making websites; Canva is incredible for social media post creation, and you can buy a lot of contract/invoice templates on Etsy. When I mentioned to my mentor that the first few weeks were stressful waiting for my first enquiries, she said it was a great time to get everything ready…email responses, contract templates, antenatal session planning, all of the things that you want to have ready when you do get that first booking!

A great piece of advice I received during my first few months came from Melanie, Nurturing Birth’s coursework co-ordinator. We were talking about how I had signed up to a hypnobirthing course, because I felt like I needed to learn more before I was ‘ready’ to go and find clients. She laughed and asked if I felt I’d finally be ‘ready’ after I’d completed this, or whether I’d then find another course to delay finding the confidence to just go and be a doula. As painful as that was to hear, she was 100% right…you don’t gain confidence and wisdom through reading books, you gain it from pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone and doing the things that scare you. The amount I’ve learned from just being at births and supporting families postnatally has increased my confidence WAY more than doing another course would have. And I’ve actually seen through doing the job which parts I do actually want to learn more about with additional training.

At Nurturing Birth we highlight the importance of ongoing mentoring, and having experienced this myself throughout my first few months I can really say how transformative it is for your business. Just having someone there to bounce ideas off, give you the emotional support and essentially ‘doula’ you while you’re learning is invaluable. Having someone on the end of the phone to celebrate your wins and actually understand how exciting booking your first client is, or how emotional you’ll find your first birth, is a support you’ll grow to learn how much you need.

Being a doula for the last year has been the most incredible, heartwarming, emotional job I’ve ever had. It’s bloody hard work sometimes, but I promise you, when you hear a mother say ‘you’ve made such a difference’, it’s all a million percent worth it.