Jeanette Faulkner

About Me

Hello!

I was a fully trained midwife and nurse for several years and left the NHS a good while ago. I recently retired from full time work, but found myself drawn back into the world of birth. I truly feel that it’s a calling that stays with you and never leaves. I have realised that being a doula allows me to work organically with the birth process in a way that being a hospital midwife doesn’t. I am a strong advocate of physiological birth and trust in a woman’s innate ability to birth her baby – I have studied and absorbed knowledge gained through the teachings of generations of wise women who attended births and will use this to be your advocate and your birthkeeper. My approach is one of natural medicine – one where the body’s own ability to heal is given a chance using homeopathy, diet, massage and reflexology.

I have several years of experience with supporting spontaneous births, including those deemed ‘high risk’ such as twins and breeches. I worked on a community caseload team with a homebirth rate of 40%. This gave me enormous confidence in the normal birth process.

My own birth was booked as a homebirth in an area with only 1% success rate. A very long back-to-back labour resulted in early artificial rupture of membranes to “speed things up”. This set up a cascade of intervention resulting in transfer to hospital, oxytocin drip, and a poorly-functioning epidural meaning I had a swollen cervix at 5cm. This experience was completely different from my own expectations, but I’m incredibly thankful my baby responded well and I managed to still get the vaginal birth that I’d hoped to have.

Following birth, I experienced my own breastfeeding difficulties with my son’s weight gain, an undiagnosed tongue tie, and re-admission to the hospital for three days of phototherapy, so I am very able to empathise with how it may be perfectly natural, but that doesn’t always make it easy. I managed to feed my son for over two years through much trial and error and because of this I really appreciate how good support is vital to success. My midwife years also gave me a fundamental training in helping achieve breastfeeding success not just with studies but with literally hundreds of practical hands-on hours.

Following my own birth experience, I attended a good friend as her doula at home with her first baby. She has a phobia surrounding hospitals and instinctively knew it was not the right environment for her to give birth. What an amazing and healing experience for me as a midwife to see my first homebirth of a new first-time mother that was a total of six hours and only an hour in second stage! It also meant I had an insight into how a doula can give support in a completely unique and separate way to a midwife – I was there just for her and her husband. These experiences helped to form my understanding of what should be the norm for ALL women in birth.

During my work as a doula, I have supported several women in their birth journey, including an amazing birth of twins at home. Each birth reaffirms for me the complete privilege and joy it is to be able to be with someone at this time. What a wonderfully enriching experience it is to support mothers -there is no other job like it!

I can offer a range of packages dependent upon need. The birth package includes a minimum of two antenatal sessions, on call for birth, and postnatal support immediately following birth. This ensures you are settled and given any feeding support before leaving.

Many of us are struggling in this financial climate, so please talk with me if this is severely affecting your ability to pay; I can also offer a payment plan if this is most suitable for you. Contact me for an initial discussion to see how I may help you as your doula. It’s absolutely free and there is no obligation.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Jeanette