I currently offer non-medical prenatal, birth, and postpartum support in English to couples in the Wageningen-area.
Unfolding Birth Package
To give birth is to open, unfold, and become. This vulnerability requires a deep feeling of safety and trust in those present during labour.
In my role as a birth doula, I walk beside women in transformation as a compassionate witness to their power and vulnerability, an experienced guide holding sacred space for their birth as it unfolds. Most importantly, I mirror back to the mother her own strength and power with unwavering confidence.
Women who I accompany through pregnancy and birth feel a deep sense of trust and safety in my presence, the ability to relax and be themselves.
Practically, this means I always offer prospective clients a zero-expectations first meeting in-person, creating a space to feel if it is a fit. And if it is not, I always recommend my dear sister doulas in the area.
If there is a connection, we follow this initial meeting with two discussions of your personal history and what is needed in your unique situation (intake), and five prenatal appointments. These appointments include childbirth education and teaching non-pharmaceutical pain-relief techniques such as positioning, massage, acupressure, movement, and working with the body’s natural pain relief systems, as well as discussing the Dutch maternity healthcare system, postpartum preparations, mother-baby bonding, normal newborn development and breastfeeding. The trajectory is tailored to meet the needs of each client.
I am on-call 24/7 from 37 weeks until you give birth, and bring my expertise and experience to support you continuously for the duration of your labour until a maximum 3 hours postpartum.
Following your birth, I attend you twice at home and offer birth story listening, closing the bones, and a ritual to conclude our relationship and honor the depth of experience that bringing your child into the world and becoming a mother has brought you.
To ensure I attend every client’s birth and can work from my heart, I accept a maximum of 2 birth clients per month and reschedule client meetings as needed to accommodate births.
Unfolding Birth Package: €1500
Enfolding Postpartum Package
Coming soon
If birth is about opening, then postpartum is the work of closing.
The work of cocooning, of coming back to yourself and finding her changed; of embracing who you are becoming; of forgetting time and being in the endless present, moving through cycles which no longer resemble days. Cycles of sensitivity and responsiveness to your child’s needs and your own with love. Telling your child, in our most primal language of touch, “I am here. You are heard. You are safe.”
“If we were to think about work in terms of our humanity—making people feel dignified, valued, and whole—then caregiving is the most important work we can do with our time on earth.”
Angela Garbes
