A Doula for Cirencester and the Cotswolds

Cirencester sits roughly equidistant between Gloucestershire Royal Hospital in Gloucester and the Great Western in Swindon. Most mothers I work with end up at one or the other, depending on which is closer to home and the kind of birth they're planning. Both teams are well-regarded. What an overstretched system can't easily provide is continuity - the same person knowing you over months, present in the weeks around the birth. That continuity is what a doula brings.

Many of the mothers I work with in this part of the country have moved here in the last few years. The countryside, the schools, the quieter days all played a part. What often doesn't make it onto the moving list is the village - the neighbours who would have brought meals, the mum or sister down the road who would have held the baby for an hour. That's the piece I help bring back. Someone trusted, present in your home, for the weeks that matter most.

I came to this work after my own postpartum. I'd been a teacher for six years, and cabin crew before that - both jobs that taught me about looking after people far from home. None of it prepared me for the early weeks after my first son was born, or for losing my mother during that same period.

The word matrescence - the developmental shift of becoming a mother - made sense of what I'd been through. I trained as a doula soon after. This is the postpartum care I needed and didn't have.