Hi, I’m Sara - a doula and photographer based in London! I help you feel connected to your instincts as a mother no matter how your birth unfolds. I offer flexible birth packages so that price or distance don’t become barriers to you receiving doula support. 

My continued education is currently focused around physiological birth and biological infant sleep/ development. 

Your instinct to birth
At the heart of my practice is a deep love for our natural instinct to birth and parent. 

Instinct comes from evolutions of mothers before you who learned how to do this and have passed on their knowledge in your DNA. Birth and parenting are full of these unconscious impulses, such as the way you suddenly make sounds in your labour (this releases beta endorphins to relieve pain), or automatically place your baby on your chest (this regulates their body temprature to keep them warm).

Together we will learn about this natural design and how to treat your instinct as a credible source of information.

In any setting, including hospital, there are ways to tap into this and feel safe and supported. It is not all or nothing. 

My Approach
My antenatal sessions are guided by your needs, but are self-reflective by nature. We will spend time learning how your body is designed to birth and unpick how your unique circumstances are influencing your birthing mindset by exploring the following:

• What is your personal mindset around birth, including fears or worries?
• Are there any external influences that are affecting your decisions?
• What do you need to feel safe and supported?

Once we've gotten to the root of this, you can better plan your birth preferences around your needs. 

I will give you information, guide you, and facilitate an environment that allows you to make your own realisations. No matter what decisions you make in your birth, the work we put will allow you to trust yourself and feel empowered. 

How I got here
When I was pregnant I became obsessed with learning everything there was to know about birth. I felt a huge sense of responsibility that becoming an expert would somehow allow me to outsmart my birth & control it.

Of course, I could never fully scratch this itch because I wasn’t addressing the root cause of my worries, which was a fear of the unknown, of the uncontrollable. No amount of information would fully help me feel prepared. This was teaching me something about my self that I knew I needed to confront in my wider life. I had deep inner work to do. 

Birth is transformational by nature like this. Like a microcosm of life, it has a way of bringing beliefs to the surface that we need to deal with. It helps show us how we look at the world and how we cope.Through birth, we have an opportunity to process these lessons and learn about ourselves. 

After my journey, I wanted nothing more than to go alongside other mothers in theirs. I knew that everyone's transformation would look different, but that unpicking fears and learning about the amazing ways our body works could act as a great foundation for this self-exploration. 

My services
If my profile speaks to you, I'd love to have a chat and see if I'm the right fit! In all of my packages I offer ongoing support via text/call.

Comprehensive 

This includes 3 antenatal sessions, attending the birth, and 2 postnatal sessions. These are all done in person.

Empowerment

A more economic birth package that involves all the same birth prep and postnatal debriefing, but I do not attend the birth in person (available via phone consult for support). 

I know price is a barrier to hiring a doula, and I am confident we can work together in this scenario to prepare you and your birth partner to tackle whatever comes your way - this is the case if I am there anyway!

Online

This is my most economic model, whereby we prep together online in antenatal sessions and then have online postnatal debriefs. 

Photography

I offer maternity, birth, & family photography as an add-on or standalone.Check out my photography page at @saraannephotos