Radiant Mama

Welcome to our new training page!

 

My name is Olivia Seck.  I am the founder and course director for Birthing Wisdom and I have been teaching the Birthing Wisdom Doula Fundamentals for nearly two decades.  The focus of the Doula Fundamentals has been to enable women to offer both birth and postnatal support to expectant and new families. 

 

Over this time, partly due to the research on the positive impact of Doulas on birth experiences and outcomes, awareness of the role and value of birth Doulas has grown enormously. Unfortunately, the importance of the postnatal period and the impact of the lack of support and preparation for this vulnerable time still remains mostly unacknowledged and unresearched.

In 2011, with a team of birth practitioners and therapists, I created the Holistic Birth Hub (now renamed Radiant Mama) as a way to introduce more support for local families. Whilst it has been a very valuable resource for new mothers with babies up to crawling age, women rarely come to us during the first 6 weeks, which is the time when they can feel shell shocked, dealing with recovering from the birth experience, hormonal changes, sleep and feeding issues etc. They are often struggling to meet the changes and challenges they hadn't expected or prepared for, without enough support.

When mamas first come to us, it can be quite difficult to help them make supportive changes.  What most women want then is just to be held, nourished and to receive.  They are giving out so much! 

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In 2018 I designed a new course, Love and Life After Birth, which I offered to groups of expectant parents.  Whilst this format was useful, I found teaching it one to one was much more valuable.  It helped the couple prepare together for their unique postnatal situation, in a much more real and intimate way.  The feedback I received was very positive and inspired me to create this new postnatal doula training to equip women to help couples/mothers prepare for the postnatal period (using the love and life after birth course template), as well as offer support after the birth. 

 

How will a Holistic postnatal Doula and educator support families?

 

During the pre-birth sessions, she will guide the parents to be/mothers to reflect, get informed and create a postnatal plan. This could take place over 4 - 6 sessions.  After the birth, she will offer support with greater awareness of the families needs and help them keep their focus on what really matters to them. 

Having had considerable time with the couple/women beforehand, the Holistic postnatal doula and educator will be more able to assess how the family is doing, their general well being, level of bonding, communication between the parents etc...and as the trust has already been built, there is a much greater possibility that parents will share their challenges honestly and be open to receive support. Parents will be encouraged to use the knowledge and tools they have learnt in pregnancy for resourcing and baby care. In contrast, a traditional postpartum doula in the West would meet the couple once before the birth to discuss contract, hours, etc... and then support the family after the birth in whichever way has been agreed.

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In order to be able to offer this level of support and education, the Holistic postnatal doula and Educator needs considerable knowledge, skills and experience.  Most combined postbirth and post doula training only include one short module and one day for the postpartum phase. This new training will be dedicated to the postnatal period and will include

 

• 6 days in-person training, starting at 2pm on the Thursday and ending at 5pm on the Tuesday. 

Dates:  4th-9th of June 2020.

• 6 distance modules. 

• 6 Zoom calls

 

As this is a new course, there is a special discount so the price is £700. Next year it will be more in line with the Fundamentals which costs £1050. 

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If you have any questions, would like to be sent the course curriculum or want to attend the intro day, email : olivia@radiantmama.co.uk. 

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