How to Build Community & Network With Doulas

The career of a Birth or Postpartum Doula can sometimes feel isolating. While you have the joy to serve and care for your incredible clients, the lack of built in co-workers can be a challenge for many people that are used to the benefits of having colleagues.

Your career as a Doula doesn’t need to be completely solo. Here are some ways that you can build community, camaraderie, connection and support with other doulas in your area.

Doula Networking Events

There are often networking events or groups in your area for doulas, hosted by doulas or other local perinatal professionals in the area. Contact your doula training organization, do a search on social media (instagram, tiktok, facebook etc), see if there is a “doula association” for your city or region, join the county doula group on facebook or check out the event calendars of local prenatal chiropractors, acupuncturists, nutritionists etc.

Grab Coffee & Connect

Ask any doulas you have met and connected with to grab coffee or tea to chat about the wild and amazing career of a doula. Maybe you need to debrief a recent birth experience, or you want to brainstorm ideas to better serve yours or talk about some creative ways to improve your doula care.

Back-Up Support

Having a back-up isn’t only essential for a professional doula to provide top notch client care; it’s a great way to build deeper relationships with other doulas. Instead of finding random doulas to back you up when an emergency or sickness strikes, choose 2-3 doulas that are your consistent back-ups. Meet with them regularly to get to know each other and create a nice network of support!

Market a Doula Package Together

Do you offer Birth Doula and Lactation care and another local doula offers Holistic Postpartum Care and Placenta Encapsulation? Team up together and create a full service package for families in your area. You are creating more options for clients, building marketing efforts and making connections with other doulas and birth professionals.

Join a Doula Agency, Collective or Referral Platform

One of the primary reasons that we founded National Baby Co., was to create a sense of community for birth professionals. Our company creates opportunities for doulas to support one another on monthly zoom calls and coffee dates, have built in back up support, take continuing education classes together and network together. To learn more about joining our nation-wide platform, read about joining our team and applying here.. While, we do serve families nation-wide, there are also many incredible Doula Agencies, Collectives and Groups across the globe! If you’re interested in this option; do your research, chat with the owners and find the right fit for you.

Partner Up and Share On-Call or Clients

On-call life quite the life, am I right? It can be hard to sustain life on-call long term. That’s why many Birth Doulas choose to partner up with a like-minded doula to share an on-call schedule and serve families together. It creates a nice work/life balance and builds in the support and community of another doula. Postpartum doulas often partner up together as well to share a contract with a family. You can come up with a schedule that works best for you such as one doula works days and the other nights, switch off care week to week or split the days of of the week!

All in all, there are just so many wonderful options for working together, supporting one another and enjoying this doula career with some incredible colleagues by your side.