Why I chose doula work after training in midwifery
I work in Cambridge and the surrounding areas as a holistic doula, supporting women to birth with trust, intuition & confidence. But my work in birth didn’t start here.
After witnessing the home birth of my niece, 6 years ago. I decided midwifery was my calling. The experience cracked me open, and my heart was filled with a deep love and devotion to the work of birth, and so I followed the only path that I knew into this work and enrolled in a midwifery programme in London.
At first, I was so excited to be learning about what I loved and surrounded by other students who shared this passion. I couldn’t wait for my first hospital placement and to witness birth again.
But the first birth I witnessed in the hospital was nothing like the home birth of my niece. It was an emergency forceps delivery in theatre, under spinal anaesthetic due to a prolonged pushing stage. I was shocked, and scarred, but ignorant. I assumed this must have been a rare complication. Little did I know, this was a brutal foreshadowing of what was to come. Intuitively, it felt wrong, but I didn’t question it. After all, I was a first-year student, “What did I know?” I thought.
After a while, it became clear that the theory learned at university: that midwives are experts in ‘normal’ birth, that birth emergencies are rare, that continuity of carer reduces complications in birth, that keeping the environment calm and undisturbed protects natural birth physiology - was mere idealism. The reality was that none, or very little of this was being practised within the NHS trust that I worked at. I kept dreaming of my sister’s home birth and how magical it was, wanting to support women to have those experiences - but they were few and far between. I witnessed so few unmedicated births that I could count them on one hand.
I went to university to learn the art of midwifery, but after years of push and pull - learning idealised theory on campus, and then being torn apart on placement - it became clear to me that this environment was not the place where I would learn the art of supporting physiological birth, as everything about what I was learning in practice was medical. I had learnt how to medically manage, measure and ‘control’ birth, through charts, assessment and protocol.
All the while, anchoring back to the first birth I witnessed, I knew that birth didn’t have to be this way. I counteracted the medical programming by reading traditional midwifery memoirs and literature, as well as listening to natural birth podcasts. I knew that there was a world in which birth was something to be witnessed with reverence, not watched. A world where birth was honoured for the power and awe of what was occurring in all realms as babies make their way to this earth. A world where women were loved through this journey, where they were held with women by their side. Women there to serve the mother. I knew this reality existed, not only because of the content I engaged with, but because I had seen it, felt it, and lived it, witnessing my sister’s birth - I decided to search far and wide until I found it again.
I was at my breaking point when I reached the end of my degree. The last final push to catch 40 babies was proving difficult (we had to catch 40 babies, born without the assistance of a doctor, to complete our assessments). Time after time, something would happen that would veer off the range of ‘normal’, and woman after woman ended up in theatre, or with a suction cup or forceps. In my last few weeks of placement, I witnessed things that I started to realise were deeply abusive and wrong. The power dynamics that were at play were so unkind, staff were overworked, and wired - with completely dysregulated nervous systems, and women were receiving the bare minimum support on a good day. I saw the newly qualified midwives at the point of burnout when they had just begun their careers… and once again, something in me cracked.
I was not well. The staff I was working with were not well.
How could I serve, love, and support women through the biggest moments in their lives, if I myself were falling to pieces?
How could I serve women in a system where I had to listen to hospital policies and guidelines, and enact procedures I didn’t want to, to women who didn’t want them, to protect myself and my license?
How could I continue to work 12.5-hour shifts, with a likely overtime, without a guarantee of a lunch break to feed my body, and rest my mind for a minute due to short staffing?
The answer is, I couldn’t, and the reality of that left me sad and confused.
I continued my search for a different way of working, and at the perfect time, I enrolled in training with the FreeBirth Society. Through this mentorship, I was exposed to a clearer view of the realities, and the limitations, of the medical system when it comes to supporting and protecting physiological birth.
I came to understand that the medical system isn’t broken. It’s working as it’s designed to do, and that realisation changed everything. It changed how I interact with the medical system for my own health, and it has changed how I now choose to work with women. I’m no longer trying to change a system from within, that has no likelihood of changing in the direction I would like it to. Rather, I am working with women from the outside, providing a clear understanding of how it all works, having been on the inside.
As a doula, I get to spend as much time as I want getting to deeply know the women I work with. I get to choose the limits through which my support begins and ends. I get to know not just women, but their entire families, their children, their pets! I get to offer the holistic support, care and love that women deserve. I get to cook women hearty, nourishing meals to heal from the inside out. This way of working energises me in a way that working within the NHS never could. Sure, it means that I support fewer women, but I know that those women will receive so much more than would be possible from me as an NHS midwife.
That, in a very long-winded story, is why I am now working as a doula, and not a midwife. Despite my medical training. I prefer to work with and for women. Not for hospitals, trusts, or insurance providers. I am so grateful for the midwives and doctors who work tirelessly within the NHS to provide services to women and their families when they really need them.
For myself, I’m more useful working in a way that I know is sustainable.
What a blessing, and an honour that is.
