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The Doula Club Doula & Doula Matcher Hypnobirthing & Antenatal Classes, Pregnancy & Postnatal Yoga, Couples Yoga for Birth & Doula, North & East London

In hospitals I see interventions, disruptions and decisions that simply wouldn’t happen at a home birth.Not because anyo...
03/08/2026

In hospitals I see interventions, disruptions and decisions that simply wouldn’t happen at a home birth.

Not because anyone’s doing anything wrong. The environment is different, so the mindset is different.

If a hospital birth is the right choice for you then brilliant. But getting the birth you want in that setting means knowing what can derail it. And it’s often the ‘small stuff’.

The lights. The hat. The doctor who pops in. The hour afterwards that gets cut short because the room’s needed.

None of it looks like a big thing at the time, but it all adds up.

So try this: approach your hospital birth like you’re at home.

Ask whoever’s supporting you whether they’ve ever seen a physiological, undisturbed birth.

And when something is suggested, ask whether it’s necessary, whether it’s routine or whether this would happen in a homebirth.

You might be surprised by the answers.

📌 Save this!

Ready Birth Go covers all of it: what to ask for, what to decline, and how your birth partner protects the room. Link in bio

TThe single most useful thing you can do at an induction is to ask “and what would happen if we waited?”I’ve watched tha...
31/07/2026

TThe single most useful thing you can do at an induction is to ask “and what would happen if we waited?”

I’ve watched that question change the process for the better. Not because anyone was doing anything wrong, but because a busy ward runs on momentum, and momentum doesn’t stop unless somebody asks it to.

What tends to happen when someone does ask is pretty ordinary. The midwife or doctor stops, thinks, and answers. Sometimes the answer is “no, this really does need to happen now” - and that’s useful information. Sometimes it’s “well, we could give it a couple more hours.”

The asking is the whole thing.

It’s just that in the moment, exhausted, on day three, with a stranger at the end of the bed, nobody remembers they’re allowed to.

That’s what your birth partner is for.

Save this one. Send it to whoever’s coming with you.

Ready Birth Go covers induction properly - link in bio

30/07/2026

Comment POD to listen to the full episode.

In the 2nd episode of Ready Birth Go, I talk to nutritionist and Sunday Times bestselling author about her two births that could not have been more different.

Her first was fast and unmedicated. Her second was a planned caesarean with a breech baby, and an unexpected maternal assisted caesarean - nothing about it went as she expected.
We talk about:

A breech, big baby, and deciding not to try to turn him

Why she never wrote a birth plan

How an early loss shaped everything that came after

What no one warns you about caesarean recovery

The love, and the fear, that arrive with a new baby

Quickfire: three words, and the worst advice she was given

Content note: this episode includes discussion of pregnancy loss and miscarriage

Comment ‘POD’ to listen to this episode with that came out today!

For the Ready Birth Go Birth Preparation course - link in bio

thedoulaclub readybirthgo

“They’ve booked me in for Tuesday.”The decision has been made; you’re just being told the date.What’s missed here is tha...
29/07/2026

“They’ve booked me in for Tuesday.”

The decision has been made; you’re just being told the date.

What’s missed here is that an induction isn’t one decision. It’s a series of them, spread across hours or days.

A sweep. A pessary, gel, tablet or balloon. Waters broken. A drip. Monitoring. Pain relief. Waiting.

Each stage is separate, each one needs full explanation, and at every point you can ask questions.

I’ve found that clients who have understood what’s happening and knew what they could ask for at each stage tend to have the most positive feelings about their inductions - more so even than those whose labours were faster or ‘smoother’.

Knowing what’s coming doesn’t give you control over the whole process, but it does help you stay in control of what you agree to.

Save this, and send it to whoever’s coming with you.

Ready Birth Go covers induction properly, stage by stage. Link in bio

readybirthgo thedoulaclub

28/07/2026

The £1 labour hack I use at every birth.

A flannel. That’s it.

Labour is the hardest physical thing your body will ever do, and you get hot, and clammy, and there’s a point where the heat itself becomes part of the overwhelm.

A cold flannel on the forehead, neck or chest cuts straight through it. Your shoulders drop, your breathing slows, and the relief makes the whole thing nicer.

It’s also the perfect job for a birth partner - something genuinely useful they can do without needing to be told how.

I use this at every birth, hospital or home. I put a cold flannel on someone’s face and almost every time I hear the same thing: “oh my god, that’s amazing.”

At home births I keep a stack in the fridge as the colder the better.

In hospital, pack a few and get your partner swapping them out in cold water, so there’s always a fresh cold one coming while the last one warms up.

Simple, cheap, and it does more than half the gadgets people spend a fortune on.

What’s your go-to labour comfort trick? Tell me below 👇

Save this and add flannels to your birth bag - and send it to whoever’s in charge of keeping them cold

“Your baby’s measuring big.”It’s one of the most common messages I get, alongside a new fear - a woman who felt fine abo...
25/07/2026

“Your baby’s measuring big.”

It’s one of the most common messages I get, alongside a new fear - a woman who felt fine about her birth is suddenly being booked for an induction she didn’t expect, bracing for a baby she’s been told she might struggle to birth.

So here’s what I want you to know, because it takes some of the fear back.

In the Big Baby Trial, around 60% of the women whose scan flagged a big baby didn’t actually have one. Late-pregnancy scans are commonly out by around 15% either way - a baby estimated at 4kg could be anywhere from 3.4kg to 4.6kg.

Sometimes there are good reasons to talk about induction - like gestational diabetes for example. But “big baby” on its own needs questions.

What’s the margin of error? Is this one scan or a pattern? What are the actual risks in my situation? What happens if we wait and reassess?

Your body grew this baby. Your pelvis moves, your baby’s head moulds, and women of every size birth “big”
babies safely every single day.

Were you told your baby was measuring big?

Drop a comment👇 - let’s show how common this really is!

Save this for your next appointment, and send it to someone who’s just been told their baby is “big”

There’s a very particular wobble that can happen in pregnancy. How am I actually going to do this?That thought can feel ...
23/07/2026

There’s a very particular wobble that can happen in pregnancy.

How am I actually going to do this?

That thought can feel frightening, but it doesn’t mean you’re not ready. It usually means you’ve understood the scale of what’s coming.

Birth is BIG - but you don’t do the whole of labour in one go.

You have one contraction. Then it passes. There is time. Then you have the next one.

That’s what I’ve watched women discover again and again. The impossible thing became possible because they only had to do the moment they were in.

Deal with one contraction at a time.

Quietly, loudly, with pain relief, without pain relief, changing the plan, needing support, asking for help, roaring, crying, breathing, swearing.

All of that is birth.

Save this for the times you’re having a wobble

Ready Birth Go gives you the breathing, positions, partner tools and practical prep to help you meet labour one contraction at a time. Link in bio.

22/07/2026

Comment POD to listen to the full episode.

In the first episode of Ready Birth Go, I talk to Emmerdale’s about two births, four years apart, and how the first one shaped everything about the second.

Bonnie arrived on Boxing Day 2021 after a Group B Strep positive result, an induction Amy was pushed towards on her due date, an epidural that fell out without anyone noticing, an episiotomy and a haemorrhage. She calls it torture, and says she came out of it feeling cheated.

So when she was pregnant with Nell, she read more, asked more, and declined nearly everything she was offered.

We talk about:

Group B Strep, and how one test result can shape an entire labour
Why a sweep is an induction, and why it’s rarely described as one
Declining a seven-day induction and negotiating for ten
Epidurals that don’t work
Fetal scalp monitoring
Birth trauma, and how a second birth can reopen the first
What partners carry into a second birth

Quickfire: three words, the TENS machine, and a six-hour playlist

Content note: traumatic birth, haemorrhage, and postnatal mental health.

Comment ‘POD’ to listen to this episode with that came out today!

For the Ready Birth Go Birth Preparation course - link in bio

thedoulaclub readybirthgo

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