Mamadoula Edinburgh birth doula

When I discovered I was pregnant with my second child, I knew that I was going to birth at home and needed the right support to do this. When I met Daisy I knew that she would be the person to help me through this as well as my partner and daughter. From the first meeting I knew she would fit in to our family and support us over the next 9 months.Over the pregnancy, Daisy listened to my wishes and needs, and fully understood how I wanted my birth to be. She supported me when I was clear on choosing to freebirth, and gave me the confidence and knowledge to trust myself in this decision. She also helped my partner to feel confident and prepared as a birth partner going into a birth outside of the hospital. I knew that I wanted my 3 year old daughter there too, and Daisy helped her learn about birth providing children’s books and really getting to know her on each visit, so she felt a deep connection with Daisy too. She also loaned me some amazing books to aid my learning about natural birth.On the day of the birth, Daisy provided the most beautiful presence to the birth space. She understood what I wanted without asking too many questions, she played beautiful sound bowls to create a loving atmosphere and she played with my daughter when I needed alone time with my partner. During the last stages of birth, she filled the pool and supported me holding my hands and speaking to me in the most gentle encouraging way. Her presence for my partner and I was second to none. It was so lovely to share our special moment of birth with Daisy as she had been an important part of the journey.After the beautiful water birth, she helped to clear the bedroom and provided me with nourishing food and drink as well as supporting me to begin breastfeeding.She came to visit twice postnatally as well as being on call to chat to after the birth, keeping me in a positive mood when the hormones kicked in! I was so grateful for her listening ear and discussing the birth afterwards. I truly believe this supported a wonderful postpartum I had in the following weeks post birth, where I had no baby blues, and it felt just blissful! She visited with food, and also birth processing discussions, which was so healing.I cannot recommend Daisy enough! She is a very experienced and knowledgeable doula and wise woman - she has many years of crafting her gifts and does so with presence and awareness.I have already recommended her to friends and I know she will spread her magic to many more families. I would not hesitate to work with her again in the future.Thank you Daisy!

Having Daisy as our doula was definitely the best decision we’ve ever made. We planned for a water birth at home for our first baby and we pulled it off, no doubt Daisy has had a big influence on this.I had met Daisy at Pregnancy yoga and knew almost immediately that she’d be everything we were looking for. I was already relatively far along in my pregnancy and had already researched and read a lot of material. But through the ‘talking mat’ session and many other conversations, Daisy brought extra topics that I hadn’t really thought about and provided additional information/signposts where there were still gaps in our knowledge, which increased our confidence greatly.There is this magical energy and comforting aura radiating from Daisy, it felt so right to have her by our sides throughout the rest of the pregnancy, the birth and after too. She is able to anticipate all your needs including birth partner’s, advocate for you at all times, be present and hold space like no other. She has also been a great guide for our first steps into parenting.Here is only a glimpse of the things Daisy supported us with:• Daily conversations with Daisy past my “due date” to ground myself and lift my heart when I was anxious• Daisy’s wisdom about fuelling up and resting as much as possible during early labour, as the main reason for transfer to hospital is exhaustion• Daisy filling the birth pool in such a hurry, running around the flat with buckets of water as Tom wasn’t allowed to leave my side and I was already pushing• The video she took of the end of the birth, for which I am forever grateful as I keep watching it every so often to remind me of this magical moment• Our first meal after Alice was born, which she cooked and brought us in bed, the best!• Support with breastfeeding, positioning and latching and expression of colostrum - I am still breastfeeding and I know it is thanks to her support right from the start• The wholesome and healthy food she brought us the following days/weeks to support my postpartum recoveryWe would so recommend every birthing people to have a doula by their side, it is just invaluable support that no one else can provide. Giving birth is such a defining and memorable moment in someone life, it has to be as empowering and magical as it can be, it’s critical to get as much help and support as you can to make it happen.

I struggle to communicate the impact that daisy had on my second pregnancy, birth and postnatal period. Working with daisy was one of the best decisions of our lives and the effects have been profound.I had planned a home birth for my first pregnancy. I spent a wonderful 6 hours of labour there. In the last two hours, for reasons i am now skeptical of, the midwives asked me to go to hospital. While there, i was pressured to act against all my instincts and long story short, this affected our initial bond alongside a tough post natal period in a national lockdown.I knew for my second birth, that I again wanted to be home, but supported by people who truly believed in women’s ability to birth beautifully. We wanted a constant and we knew that would be via a doula.We connected and I knew I would be honoured to have a women so wise, experienced and trusting at my birth. We met a number of times at our home where we shared food and stories and daisy had great methods to get to the heart of our hoped for labour, birth and post natal. She shared educational books and even beautiful children’s books to help prepare my son for his little sisters arrival.During labour she was incredible. She prepared the pool, the room, was the point of contact for the midwives, leaving my husband 100% focused on me. In the early stages she was a calming presence knitting a little hat on the sofa. Her calmness passed to me. When the midwives came she took charge and kindly but clearly communicated my various wishes. (The midwives also loved her!) During the later stages she seemed to intuitively know what I needed, a fan, a cool cloth, privacy in some moments. She gently advised on a breathing technique to relax my pelvic floor and wow, it all happened after that! She held my hand and roared with me as my daughter came into the world ❤️She enabled us to have space to bond with our daughter, while she busied herself cooking food for us. Our daughter also sported a beautiful knitted hat and knitted cord tie from daisy.Daisy visited us a number of times after birth, bringing herbal remedies to support my healing, and nourishing food and a chance to debrief about the birth.I can not explain the high we were on and, still are on 4 months later. My mental health improved post partum and I believe it was through this healing birth. We are forever grateful and will never forget all she did for us. The world is a better place with women like daisy xx

Daisy was absolutely brilliant before, during and after the home birth of our second child. Her sensitivity and responsiveness to what we wanted / needed was absolutely spot on. Her experience and confidence in us gave us confidence and I feel very lucky to have had her support - it was transformative! If you're thinking of having a doula at your birth, we would fully recommend Daisy.

My birthing experience was incredibly healing, wonderfully beautiful and truly amazing. A lot of it was because of Daisy. It will never be known just how much she positively impacted our whole birthing experience. She made me feel safe and confident again which is something I had lost.I had two traumatic births previously, one was at home but full of fear from all medical professionals and lack of support and care from my other doula at the time. The other one I lost my baby, in the hospital.So during my pregnancy I felt incredibly anxious about everything, especially about the birth. At the start of this pregnancy I had no idea how I wanted to give birth, but I knew I needed the right people around me and most importantly, to feel safe this time. Daisy was the right person.I deep down knew I wanted this beautiful, safe, warm birth in a pool, in my own comfortable home. Daisy listened to me, encouraged me to question medical professionals in a calm but strong way and supported me and my husband in every aspect of our pregnancy, birth and after. She came to hospital appointments, checked in, brought comfort to my husband who was also very anxious, offered me tools and knowledge to ease my pregnancy, etc.I was able to chat to her every week as I went to her yoga class (highly recommended them from the Parent And Pregnancy Centre). This sort of support and guidance were so very important to me.I am a type 1 diabetic, the hospital were not for me having this baby at home.However because of the support, care and confidence Daisy gave me, I had my beautiful, safe, warm, incredible birth in my own home, in a pool with no midwives. Just Daisy and my husband were there. It was so unbelievably lovely. This birth was hard, baby was 11lb, but Daisy was there with drinks, food, care and wonderful words of encouraging, love and safety.After the birth, she helped with everything. Getting me and baby comfortable, with breastfeeding, with cleaning up, packed up everything, dealt with the placenta, midwives, hospital and brought soup and apple puree (she fed me some of hers during birth and I loved it! Haha!)I want to mention that she took pictures of us when baby came. Really lovely. She also took a video of us, seconds just after I gave birth and honestly it is the most precious thing to me. It's not something I thought I'd need but I am so glad she captioned it for me. I still watch it every now and again.She's a wonderful person. Calmness and safety just flows from her, she has so much knowledge and skills and that is what you need. You need someone who will put you first. Who will listen to what you want and what you need, whatever, wherever. Who encourages you to trust and listen to yourself.You know I struggle to tell the true stories of my other births, but this one I will tell anyone and everyone because of how amazing it was. I will tell them the importance of having the right support and care can change your birthing experience. I couldn't of wished for a better doula by my side.I will be recommending Daisy till she retires.Thank you so much Daisy!

From very early on in my pregnancy I knew I wanted Daisy to be our doula.She spent so much time and effort with us throughout my entire pregnancy, teaching us, kindly and gently guiding us and generally looking after our well-being.Daisy knew I was hoping to have a free birth and that this was my first baby. She gave me unwavering support and confidence throughout my whole pregnancy and I knew she didn’t doubt me for one second.I had a beautiful free birth bringing myAmazing baby girl into the world with my husband and Daisy by my side. Daisy made sure I was fed, watered and cared for during labour, quietly set up a beautiful birthing room for me - music, birthing pool, dimmed lighting. Everything I wanted.Daisy guided me gently throughout, making me feel totally empowered and allowing me to trust my body and my baby.I got my dream of catching my own baby and being the first person to hold her.Daisy then helped me to ensure breast feeding was established as this was really important to me. There was a beautiful calm energy in the hours after our daughter was born that we all enjoyed together after the most amazing birth experience.I honestly will never be able to thank Daisy for everything she’s done for us. Helping me to end generational birth trauma and giving me the greatest gift.Not to mention the beautiful knitted hat for our daughter, lovely nutritious food and for being my safe space throughout pregnancy and postpartum.Thank you so much for everything Daisy!

My decision to have Daisy by my side as my Doula was the best decision I could have made. She helped me to understand what it was I wanted from my birth experience this time and made sure that it was fully realised.I knew that I wanted as little disturbance as possible and wanted the opportunity to be at one with my body. For me, it was really important that I could get out of my head and and just listen to what my body wanted to do.On the day I went into labour, I felt completely relaxed and confident about the journey I had ahead of me. When Daisy arrived, I knew I was safe and that it was time to give birth. I felt confident that she was the only person I needed beside me. My mind and my body were in complete harmony and my daughter was born into an environment of love and joy. I was able to feel strong giving birth this time and able to feel fully connected to what I needed to do.I feel so grateful to Daisy for preparing me for birth and for holding that space for me to fully embrace who I could be. Choosing to freebirth was incredibly empowering and has given me a whole new perspective on birth and motherhood. I would not change anything about my experience, it was just beautiful, thank you ❤️

What Daisy brought to our lives before, during and after the birth of our child is simply impossible to quantify.Having Daisy by our side during pregnancy gave my wife and I a sense of strength and confidence that we didn’t know was available to us. On one level it was the reassurance and comfort Daisy gave us during home visits prior to the big day: “oh that’s totally normal” and “yeah I’m not surprised that’s how you’re feeling” she would say. Daisy effortlessly soothes and removes the feeling that you’re losing your mind completely and that things must be going wrong. On another level what Daisy provides is like Childbirth Bootcamp: Daisy is passionately committed to making sure whoever she supports has thought carefully about their wishes and preferences for childbirth and that they take ownership of them. The impact Daisy had on us in the build-up to childbirth was that we were much better prepared for setting out our wishes with the midwifery team, as well as being better prepared mentally, practically and logistically at home.During childbirth Daisy and I formed an unbreakable team around my wife. I will never forget how we worked together, not just in the ‘doing’ of all the things to offer support, but really, really being there fully. When the midwives arrived I could see they saw what was happening and (to their credit) they stepped back and allowed us to continue. Their interventions were minimal, discreet, appropriate and respectful. Would this have been the case had Daisy not been there for me to form a team with? I don’t think so.For a few days immediately after the birth Daisy checked in on us and offered us friendship, moral support, reassurance and home-cooked food. It was during this phase that we re-introduced our baby daughter to Daisy; we explained to her who Daisy was and how important Daisy was in all of our lives. Daisy sang a blessing to our daughter and it’s a moment I shall never forget.Daisy, I think you know how we feel about you and the impact you’ve had on our lives. Thank you doesn’t really feel enough.

Wow! Having had our first child Beau at home with Daisy at our side throughout the process (from preparation to after-care), I can't imagine how the birth or the happy family we are now, would have been possible without her. Easily the best money I've ever spent (and I'm quite a penny pincher).As a clinical, suit wearing man of science and a fake-tan wearing fashionista; at first glance, the boho Daisy might not have been an obvious match for my wife and I. However, I can honestly say that she is our birthing soul mate and we were 100% compatible due to her flexibility, steadfast boundaries and incomparable professionalism, married with a familial nurturing spirit that made us feel like we had known her our whole lives. In fact, there has been somewhat of a grieving process knowing that we won't see her as regularly after birth as we did in the months leading up to and the weeks after Beau's birth. We look forward to rekindling our relationship if we are lucky enough to have another child.As a hospital dentist myself and my wife initially quite afraid of birth, we have gone on quite a journey; from considering an elective caesarean, to having full confidence and belief in a home birth. I definitely felt safer at home than we could have been in hospital and a lot of this is down to Daisy.She is very open minded and offers both sides of the coin. As someone who consents patients for procedures, I feel she has a much better understanding of consent and preparation for an experience than anyone I have ever worked with in hospital.Daisy really makes the whole experience manageable and life-affirming: from talking mats for building our birth plan to an aromatherapy masterclasses pre-natal; completely calming the atmosphere, providing emotional/physical support and helping set boundaries during birth; and providing post natal breastfeeding/parenting support and nutritious meals.We feel blessed and privileged to have had Daisy play such a major role in one of the most important events in our lives. We cannot thank her enough.For anyone considering Daisy's support, I would highly recommend attending the PPC home birth support group on the first Sunday of each month, as this will answer any questions you may have about the process.