Cooking scares me! And other questions from our FAQs file

This blog unpacks the top questions from our last webinar about working in postpartum care, as well as the Postpartum Education and Care Training Q&A calls. Julia answers questions about postpartum care including how to become a doula even if you hate cooking, find out if you need business insurance, and discover how to market yourself and get your first postpartum client. We’ve loosely edited the transcript for clarity.

Question: Cooking scares me! But I'm worried that if I don't incorporate cooking into my business model, my services might not seem as valuable to postpartum mothers.

Our business manager, Dusk, is not a confident cook, so you are not alone. In fact, ask any postpartum doula, and most of us will have horror stories about cooking. Dusk’s particular story is about bringing a beautiful jar of bone broth to a labouring family, only to drop it in the driveway when she arrived! The glass smashed, and the broth went all over the driveway of this client's home while they were in labour!

My horror story is that I was making pumpkin soup for a client and didn't know how to use her blender. It can be quite stressful cooking in other people's kitchens. The blender lid flew off, and the soup went everywhere. It probably took me an hour to wipe all of the soup off her walls, her jars, and everything else.

So yes, I can understand why you wouldn't want to do it!

Luckily, you don't have to make food the main part of your service.

I personally love cooking. However, in the course, we include many ideas for helping families get the food they need without you having to make it. We also explore lots of things that you can do to support families that don’t involve cooking at all.

For example, meal boxes are readily available now, and there are many meal delivery services. You can also support your clients in setting up a meal roster or online grocery shopping.

Read more: 3 Postnatal Meal Kits You Can Make

You can also prepare ingredients. You can simply wash and chop some vegetables for a stir fry that the family can cook for themselves. You could wash lettuce and leave it in a container in the fridge, mixing some dressing in a separate jar. You can boil a dozen eggs, and they'll keep in their shells in the fridge for up to two weeks. This kind of thing makes a parent’s week so much easier without you actually having to cook.

Often, a healthy meal can be as simple as sourdough toast and avocado drizzled with olive oil and sea salt. Simply reminding a new family of this can be restorative!

You don't have to be a gourmet chef to support a family.

I notice a lot of people on Instagram will post elaborate meals and menus with beautiful photos of their cooking. It’s very Insta-worthy. In real life, though, a lot happens that isn't pretty enough to put on Instagram, and it's really important work.

So don't be put off by the fact that something doesn't make a great photo. It's still really valuable.

In our training, you will learn information about running a food business, but you’ll also learn many practical and easy ways to add nutrition and food care to your package, even if you’re not a cook.

To sum up: if you're terrified of cooking, that's not a barrier. You can still provide a lot of excellent postpartum care in other ways and ensure that the new mum gets the nutrition they need.

Question: As far as getting your first client, what's the best way to market yourself?

We have a whole business module in our training that you receive at the end of the course as a graduation bonus. This is an incentive to help people graduate! I know many people buy online courses and never finish them, but it really is important to me to encourage you with engaging content, the community, Q&A calls, and graduation bonuses.

The primary business strategy we teach is content marketing, which is what we use at Newborn Mothers. If you've ever listened to my podcast or read my blog posts, that is a good example of content marketing.

When I was working as a face-to-face doula in people's homes, my content marketing included a free pregnancy workshop. Once a month, I would run a free two-hour postpartum planning session for pregnant couples at the local community midwifery centre.

People would get to know me, they would have a postpartum plan, and they'd also know who to call if they decided they wanted more intensive support.

Content marketing is like having a taste of wine before you commit to buying the whole bottle. It allows people to see your values and philosophy, connect with you, build trust, and ask questions.

Some will go on to hire you, and some won’t.

The other thing I love about content marketing is that it’s a way to support people who can't hire you. When you put out high-quality resources or do public speaking, you provide some postpartum education to people who might not be able to afford your paid services.

Local referrals are also really valuable for local businesses. When I first started, most of my clients were referred to me by two professionals. One was a pregnancy yoga teacher who loved what I did, and the other was a birth doula who did hypnobirthing and birth support.

As soon as I found those two people to refer to me, I barely had to advertise. I had a full list of clients and wait lists. 

In our business module, we also teach you the basics of a client intake form, what to put in your client agreement, what to write on your website, how to set up an email newsletter, and other similar topics.

Question: In Australia, is there any certification required for postpartum doulas or care providers?

No. In Australia, being a doula is an unregulated industry. You are not required to do any training at all.

Obviously, many professionals prefer to develop their skills and be clear on their scope of practice. Most people will feel more confident with some training under their belts.

But there's no regulating body that says you have to have a particular qualification, so it's entirely up to you which course you choose and how much you study.

Most doulas I know are lifelong learners anyway and usually take courses every year, even though they're not required to.

Learn more about certification: Can I call myself a doula?

Question: Is insurance necessary when providing postpartum care and education to clients?

Depending on your country of residence, it may or may not be possible to find an insurance company that will cover you when providing postpartum care and education.

Working within the scope of your role is the best way to protect yourself legally, and our training clearly outlines this.

Another way to protect yourself legally is to have a really watertight client agreement that clearly states the expectations.

When working within our scope of practice, we don't do anything medical, we don't diagnose, we don't treat. Instead, we provide evidence-based information and support clients through decision-making. 

For example, if you want information about breastfeeding, we would direct students to the handouts on that topic on the Australian Breastfeeding Association website (or the equivalent in your country). Then you are not liable for that information because you are just sharing what the official resources are.

Learn more: Are postpartum doulas covered by insurance?

Question: In your experience of postpartum work and with your students, how long do they provide care to the families?

I think care is as long as the clients need it to be. One of the things we always say when people ask, "How long is postpartum?" is: "Well, postpartum is forever."

There's no time when you won't be postpartum after having a baby. Your brain will be forever changed, and your perspective on life will be forever changed. It affects your values and everything about you. From that perspective, you'll always be postpartum.

When we look at statistics, it's important to know what we are counting. Many people think of postpartum as simply the physical transition: the six weeks that it takes for your breast milk supply to regulate, your uterus to contract down to its original size, and the bleeding to stop

That's why most people think of postpartum as a six-week medical and physiological transition. However, this does not take into account the huge shifts in identity, roles, and social expectations that accompany that transition.

One of the problems is when you only look at postnatal as up to the first six weeks, you actually miss some of the biggest challenges. For example:

When I say suicide is the leading cause of maternal death, that's when you count the first year postpartum. In the first six weeks, suicide is not the leading cause of death. That would be heavy bleeding, high blood pressure or infection. It would be neglectful of us to say that maternal suicide is not part of postpartum because it is obviously all part of the same journey.

Within the social work field  there's a ton of research on the first thousand days of a baby's life and how impactful those first three years are on their entire lifetime of health and well-being. 

The most common time for depression and anxiety in the life of a mother is four years after the birth of her first child. This research,  by the Murdoch Children's Institute,was a longitudinal study with over a thousand women over many years They found that more women had depression and anxiety four years after birth than they did in the first three months, six months or one year.

We absolutely need to expand our definition of what it is to be postpartum and how long this transition takes.

Back to your more specific question, what care do we provide? - the care that we feel we want to provide and the care that our clients need. Each person can decide if they want to include something in their contract saying they only provide care up to x number of months, but it’s not mandatory. It’s an individual decision.

I've even had one of my students care for a grandmother. When the client’s grandchild was born, she realised she still had this hole in her heart that she hadn't been cared for, that she'd been neglected in her own postpartum time. She realised that to be fully present as a grandmother, she needed to receive that care.Her family rallied around her to pay for one of my students to be a postpartum doula for her. That’s really powerful, isn't it?

The idea that postpartum is simply a six-week physiological transition is neglectful of the fullness of the years that follow the birth of a child and a mother.

Listen to a podcast interview with one of our graduates: Starting a postpartum career

Question: You mentioned a few physical rituals that you teach in the course to help provide support for mothers, as well as the rituals of entering this new phase and healing from that. Do you also help us with any emotional and spiritual rituals?

In the practical support module, we have a lesson on intuition. 

We also have a lesson on boosting oxytocin. Oxytocin is a hormone commonly associated with religion because it's about connection and community. It's about singing, dancing, and physical touch. Oxytocin is such a central part of spiritual work. 

We also teach people about being compassionate and nonjudgmental, asking good questions and listening to what our clients have to share.

We also have a lesson specifically on rites and rituals and how you can create meaningful moments, either on a normal day or in the context of a circle, a retreat, or something bigger.

Question: Other than marketing and general business costs, are there any other costs that I might not be aware of? Do you have things that you take with you to see a client or anything like that that I should be thinking about?

It's different for every postpartum support professional because some people provide massage, so they would bring a table and towels with them, and some people who cook might bring some kitchen equipment or ingredients.

There's not anything that is required for every professional; it’s dependent on your specific services.

I generally encourage people to have less equipment because our society's solution to many problems is often stuff. If the baby's crying, parents are told to get a bouncer or that they need this latest, greatest toy, a better pram, or a better car.

Instead of stuff, I always prioritise care and support, and I don't think you need a lot of equipment for that.

You might buy the odd gift or build up a library of books, but these are all optional and really depend on the type of care you provide.

Thinking about your business costs, a rough rule of thumb is to to estimate that it's 50% owner drawings and 50% investment in the business.

Often, the problem comes when people only charge for their contact hours. If you think that you're only working when you're seeing a client, you're not counting the other part of your time investment where you are creating content, writing your website, doing free consultations with potential interviews, meeting up with other professionals, and doing professional development.

Many hours are not directly paid for, so you need to take that into account when pricing your services. This is more the cost than actually buying things.

Have a question that we haven’t answered?

Email us and Julia might answer it on the podcast! No question too big, small or quirky, we love them all. Send us your questions here.

Newborn Mothers Postpartum Education and Care Training includes 12 modules on caring for new families, including mental health, breastfeeding and sleep support, plus a bonus module on business and marketing so you can actually get clients and get paid. If you want to transform the lives of Newborn Mothers and make a living while doing so, then this training is for you.