Saturday, July 11, 2009

9am to 3:30 pm at Babies in Bloom (North San Diego County)

If your business looks like this:

Pregnant women running away

But you want it to look like this:

Then this workshop is for you!

We will cover :

• 5 MISTAKES that are making you invisible to your clients.
• Discover with my 7-Holes-Strategy where your business has LEAKS.
• How to Draw in/REEL in prospects once they are interested.(WITHOUT Selling!)
• The one thing you can do to increase your referrals dramatically!
• The 9-Step Menelli Method for getting referrals (Lots of referrals!).
• Magnetic marketing material that will get your potential clients calling you.
• How to get people so interested in your business that you’ll never see the glazed eyes expression ever again.
• A NEW kind of business card that clients will beg to get from you. (We’re not exaggerating, Kim Wildner is proof that this works!)
• Create a customer evangalists who can act like an unpaid salesforce.
• And Much More!

More information and registration at http://birthingbusiness.com/workshops.htm

Or call 760-522-2829

If you have any trainings you’d like to announce, please let us know.You can email sheri@birthingbusiness.com.

If you are looking to learn how to run your doula business successfully, you will want to check out Sheri Menelli’s Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Successful Birthing Business

Or you can also check out a free audio recording on how to get clients in any economy.

You can also check out a great blog from The Birthing Business Institute that has plenty of tips for birthing business owner or the webpage for The Birthing Business Institute.

If you want the basic questions answered of how much doulas make, the types of doulas, where to find trainings, etc, check out the best book on the subject “How to Become a Doula“

Doulas are trained to offer support to laboring woman. This support usually extends from pregnancy through the birth, and into the early postpartum period. A Birth Doula can generally be expected to offer at least one prenatal visit to discuss the upcoming birth and the desires and preferences of the new family. These visits are also educational, as the doula is trained to give objective evidence-based facts and resources to help the family understand their options. Doulas are aware of risks and benefits of interventions and procedures, and are available to answer questions and help the parents to get the most out of there experience.

The Doula extends this unconditional support to the birth, where she offers continuous emotional support, constantly encouraging the woman that she is strong and reassuring her if she is afraid. The doula understands the ballet of birth-when to step away and respect the space of the birthing mother, and when to hold her close and comfort her, as well as how to enable the partner to be the number one support person. Doulas know well how to keep the environment warm and relaxing, and can help facilitate effective communication between the hospital or birth center staff and the couple. Because of their training and extensive knowledge of the physiological process of birth, doulas can suggest labor positions and techniques that help the mother’s body do its work, while making the mother more comfortable. Other comfort measures such as patterned breathing, imagery, massage, acupressure, and even in some cases hypnosis, are all skills that doulas possess.

After the birth of the baby, when all the attention will have normally shifted to the new baby, the doula is still there primarily for the mother. She recognizes the mother and child as an inseparable unit, and understands the intense emotional changes the woman is undergoing. She can offer breastfeeding assistance, give tips on baby care and nutrition, and help the mother to process the birth experience.

Studies have shown that the benefits of continuous labor support can reduce the rate of cesarean by 50%!! That’s not all a doula can do, this same study showed on average, 25% shorter labors, 60% reduction in epidural requests, 30% reduction in analgesic use, and 40% reduction in forceps delivery. Apparently, Doula support is the gift that keeps on giving, 6 week after the birth of their babies, mothers who had doulas reported less anxiety and depression, more confidence with their babies, more satisfaction with their relationships with their partners, and were more likely to breastfeed.

Doulas are usually women who love birth. They love helping moms and families have an easier time during pregnancy and birth and they make a dramatic difference. Many doulas are moms who got into the profession out of their love of birth and the flexibility that it offered. Other doulas are pregnancy massage therapists, prenatal yoga instructors, childbirth educators and midwifery students who want to supplement their income with a job that helps them work with their existing clients.

How much training do they have?

Because doulas are not medical, they don’t catch babies or give medical advice. They don’t replace a doctor, midwife, or nurse. They are really in a class of their own. Whereas Midwives and Obstetricians are primarily concerned with the physical health and wellbeing of the mother and baby, doulas are devoted to the mental, emotional, and spiritual well being of the new family as well as being sensitive to the birthing woman’s specific needs, comfort, desires, and environment. Because of this, a doula does not usually have nor do they need a medical background.

Training workshops vary from as short as a weekend to a few months, but there are other requirements and steps including bookwork, required reading and exams in some cases. They learn how to make birth more comfortable, how to reduce the chance of a c-section and how to give great emotional support to the mom and family, as well as effective communication and creating a comfortable birth atmosphere.

There are no licenses for doulas. Some training programs certify doulas and others do not.

How much does it cost to become a doula?

It can cost as little as $300 to more than $1000 to become a doula. It really depends on the type of training course and the reading list, as well as certain other factors.

Some doulas continue to educate themselves with more advanced doula or midwifery training, or add skills such as lactation training, or massage. They also may take basic business/marketing classes from The Birthing Business Institute (www.birthingbusiness.com) to learn how to build their client base and make more income.

What is the lifestyle of a doula like?

Doulas are on call most of the time. Most doulas have a backup in case they are at another birth or they are sick. Doulas are home-based entrepreneurs so they determine how many clients they want to take on per month or if they want to take a few months off.

Here is a simple and quick way to get more links to your website:

Create a page in Squidoo. What is Squidoo? Basically it is an easy to use template that allows you to create a page about yourself or your business or some topic in about 20 minutes. It allows you to create plenty of links. Who should you link? Anything or anyone that you choose but your website should definately be in there.

Here are some example pages that I’ve created.

http://www.squidoo.com/becomedoula/

http://www.squidoo.com/doulabiz/

http://www.squidoo.com/doulaschools/

http://www.squidoo.com/postpartumdoula/

If you do decide to create a page and link one of my pages, please let me know so that I can link to you as well! Go to www.birthingbusiness.com to find my contact information.

Different kinds of doulas

Pregnant women everywhere are starting to catch on- the secret to having a better birth isn’t just learning to ‘puff-puff, blow-blow’, and it’s not about having a quick epidural either! No, the secret is out: Having a doula is the thing to do.

The word Doula comes from the Greek word that some translate to mean ‘slave’ another translation that is much more applicable is ‘handmaiden’.

There are three types of doulas who all have very different roles.

The Antepartum Doula

An Antepartum Doula offers her services to pregnant mothers who are having high-risk pregnancies or are on bedrest. They offer non-medical support including education, physical support such as bedrest assistance, sibling care, errands, meal preparation, home care, and emotional support (The certification for Antepartum doula is only offered through CAPPA).

The Postpartum Doula

Postpartum Doulas give emotional and breastfeeding support along with practical newborn care tips and assisting the mother with necessary household chores. The postpartum can help care for older siblings, and light housekeeping, errands, and meal preparation. Postpartum doulas help educate and guide the mother in newborn care such as bathing, cord care diapering, swaddling and others. She can help reduce colic and teach moms how to more easily get babies to sleep. She is there to assist the transitions that new families face in the early postpartum period.

The Birth Doula

The Birth Doula is also called a Labor Assistant because she assists during the birth. The Birth Doula offers her expertise to women during the last few months leading up to the birth and then offers continuous emotional, mental, spiritual and physical support during the labor, and can offer encouragement and reassurance to the partner as well. She is also available for the early postpartum period to help the new family adjust.

Excerpted from How to Become a Doula: Creating a Successful Career While Doing What You Love by Sheri Menelli

To purchase the How to Become a Doula book, go to http://www.howtobecomeadoula.com/entry.html

Happy Birthings!

Sheri Menelli

This weblog is will feature information pulled from Sheri Menelli’s How to Become a Doula Ebook.

For more information on the book “How to Become a Doula” go to

www.howtobecomeadoula.com/entry.html

Happy Birthing!

Sheri Menelli
Founder of The Birthing Business Institute
www.birthingbusiness.com
www.howtobecomeadoula.com
760-431-2228