Blog | GilliANtenatal | Stroud, Gloucestershire

Pregnancy Yoga

In pregnancy, you can continue attending your regular yoga class, making sure that the teacher knows you’re pregnant as some adaptations...

Why bother writing a birth plan?

‘Birth Plan’, ‘Birth Preferences’, ‘Birth Guidelines’… whatever you want to call it – have you written one? Or have you ever heard...

Unpacking the OASI Bundle

If you’re pregnant, you may have heard of the OASI (Obstetric Anal Sphincter Injuries) bundle - or maybe you haven’t, in which case it’s...

Making a Splash!

‘Breaking the waters’ - what an odd phrase! Can water ‘break’? In what other situation is water described in the plural? Are we even...

Who's on your birth team?

I had the honour of witnessing a beautifully undisturbed birth recently. Labour was long and at times exhausting - though the strength...

Antenatal Education, 1960's style!

These historic documents were shared with me recently by someone whose mother had taken National Childbirth Trust (NCT) classes in the...

How many fingers am I holding up..?

Knowing how many centimetres ‘you are’ in labour has become something we are obsessed with to such an extent that vaginal examinations...

Giving birth – can you avoid a tear?!

Just the words ‘perineal trauma’ make me do some pelvic floor squeezes! Which is actually one of the things which can be helpful when...

"The cord was wrapped around the baby's neck!!!"

Let’s put this one to bed. It’s a phrase that I often hear (not surprisingly, because it occurs in 20-30% of births) and it’s usually...

To hat or not to hat?

Can we please talk about hats on babies?! Don’t get me wrong, I’m as partial as the next person to a gorgeous little person sporting some...

What can a doula do for you?

Listen to myself and Judi Scott discuss fertility, IVF and emotional prenatal support on the Be on Purpose podcast. I join Judi Scott –...

'The Perfect Client'

When I started working as a doula, a more experienced colleague suggested that I think about who my ‘perfect client’ would be and then go...

Postnatal Ponderings

As I write this, I’m waiting for a baby to be born. It has to be the most exciting part of a doula’s job – but what I’m especially...

Why hire a doula?

A quick glance at the research will turn up studies from all around the world that have shown doula support around labour and birth to be...