Postnatal was never the afterthought
Postnatal was never the afterthought I can’t point to the moment it happened, but somewhere along the way we ‘forgot’ about the postnatal period. Not the immediate first days, but those early weeks that support a parent to lean into their instincts or to simply allow themselves to be, rest and recover. If you’re thinking about becoming a postnatal doula, this is the part of birthwork you’re drawn to, and it’s the part that got forgotten Not the immediate first days, but those early weeks that support a parent to lean into their instincts or to simply allow themselves to be, rest and recover. Why postnatal gets treated as the afterthought Attending births was the sexy thing. There is awe and magic in attending a birth. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that it is simply those things, it is other things besides. I’m saying that we somehow have forgotten the awe and magic and the messiness of the postpartum period. You might have heard it described as jobs: laundry, cooking, tidying. Maybe part of you wonders whether it’s “proper” doula work at all. So let’s be clear. A postnatal doula supports a family through the weeks after birth: holding, nourishing, protecting rest, and knowing when to escalate. You may even consider it the ‘Cinderella’ of doulaing, and so you undervalue both the work and yourself, leading to you charging less or perhaps not even training at all. The day my friends turned up with buckets I have an incredibly strong memory of my own early postnatal period after I had given birth to twins. Everyone had gone back to work and the novelty of me and twins had worn, or was wearing, off. The doorbell rang. I was tired. The babies had just settled. And now there’s some f*cker at my door. I opened the door and saw two friends carrying buckets, yellow gloves and bags. “Go back to bed or whatever you were doing” they said. “We’re not here to see either you or the babies. Don’t mind us”. As I sat back in my rocking chair, moving in and out of sleep, I could hear their voices laughing and chatting as they deep cleaned my kitchen and my bathroom. Then they gave a gentle knock on my living room door and said “Right, turn the oven off in 45 mins. See you soon”. And like that they were gone. That’s postnatal doulaing. Nobody asked. Nobody needed thanking. The need was met and they left. My babies are 22 now and it remains my most precious postnatal memory. Like family of old, they came in and met a need that I hadn’t articulated. Every culture has a name for it Globally there are so many different names for the early weeks of postpartum. Postnatal care was the centre long before birth became the main event. Across cultures, the weeks after birth were protected: 40 days, lying in, cuarentena, confinement. I bet if you were to look into your own heritage and traditions you would find the name for it within your ancestry. In my Jamaican heritage, those first weeks had a shape. There was the wash: a warm bath of bush herbs (soursop, fever grass, leaf of life and guava leaves) boiled to soothe the body and draw out pain. Hot teas to sweat out the cold and stop it settling in the joints and womb, and the belly is bound. The food included cornmeal porridge, fish tea, callaloo, ginger and guava. Nobody was thinking about how they would bounce back. It was about nurturing and recovering. There was deliberation in naming my doula training organisation. Abuela means grandmother. The grandmother was the postnatal doula. Sankofa comes from the Akan people, meaning to go back and retrieve. There is so much richness in our heritage for us to go back for. The recipes, the traditions, the way we support and hold, the different roles. What happened to the village What has happened to us is that we’ve become increasingly separated from family. Our ‘villages’ have become separated by concrete walls and bricks. We are taught to get on with our individual lives and so the ‘old ways’ of community gets lost. Families were separated from their elders, birth became a clinical event, and the culture shifted to bouncing back. The need didn’t go away. The people who met it did. The “new” practices being sold now (closing the bones, belly binding, baby carrying, healing foods and oils) are traditional knowledge, rebranded and often stripped of where it came from, sold as a wellness add-on, no lineage named, priced so the communities it came from can’t afford it. If you learn these practices, learn them with their roots. What becoming a postnatal doula asks of you If you’re drawn to this work, you’re stepping into the oldest part of birthwork, not the leftovers. “Go be someone’s buckets and yellow gloves” – Mars Lord Is postnatal doula work real work? Yes. It’s skilled work and it’s paid work. Treating it as the cheap add-on was a choice the sector made, not a truth about the job. Train for it properly and you can price it properly. And you don’t need to train as a birth doula first to do it. Postnatal is its own work. It always was. When you train as a postnatal doula, the tasks are real and skilled. They’re also the way into the house, not the whole job. The job is holding, nourishing, protecting rest, noticing what isn’t tiredness, and knowing when to escalate. Postnatal was never the afterthought. If it’s what you’re drawn to, trust that. Postnatal Sankofa trains it as the central work it is: traditional practices taught with their roots, feeding support and signposting, the Five Anchors, boundaries, safety and escalation, and the business side. Then go and be someone’s buckets and yellow gloves. Postnatal Sankofa When Birthwork Calls Birthwork Pathway Anti-racism Pathway Postnatal Sankofa3 to 6 November 2026. Booking
What does it really mean to train as a doula in the UK?
When people ask whether doula training is worth the cost, they are usually asking something more specific: will I get clients? Will I be able to build a practice? Will this change anything?
How Much Does Doula Training Cost in the UK – And Is It Worth It?
When people ask whether doula training is worth the cost, they are usually asking something more specific: will I get clients? Will I be able to build a practice? Will this change anything?