We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lauren Riordan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lauren, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

My first 3 births were very medicalized and I felt that I had no one to help me advocate for myself or teach me that I actually had options. Having my fourth child was a completely different story. I felt more educated and listened to. During my birth, my midwife stayed with me the entire time and just the presence of another woman in the room meant the world to me! I felt more relaxed and confident. After my daughter’s delivery, I realized that I wanted to do that for other families! I wanted to be the constant person in the room and be the person to help them feel more confident in themselves. After talking with families, I quickly learned that there was a high demand for additional support throughout pregnancy and birth, so I chose to get certified! Ever since then, I’ve had the joy of supporting many families throughout the St. Louis area.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

There was one day last year that I had 3 birth in 26 hours! Boy did that remind me of how resilient I am! Its rare for this to happen as I try to strategically space out my clients, but babies come when they want (and it was a full moon)! I chose to embrace it and make sure that I had backup doulas in line. Thankfully, I didn’t need to utilize them as everything spaced out perfectly. I reminded myself that everything was okay and that it wasn’t my fault. I made that I ate and rested when I had the time and show up focused on my current client and none of the others in that day. After those births were over, I became proud of myself and learned that I can do this work in stressful times and not carry that with me to someone else’s birth.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

If there’s one thing that I stress in this age, it’s that social media counts! My clients can learn more about me before they even speak to me. I make sure to post my availability, pictures of me working, advice for during pregnancy and after birth. I also make sure that I post about different events that moms may not know about.

I’ve tried to join every platform so that my name gets out to different generations and people. I’ve learned that Instagram is one of my main ways of gaining clients, so I make sure that I am always posting there.

My main piece of advice for anyone starting out in social media is to hashtag EVERYTHING that pertains to your business.

The last thing that I want to stress about the importance of social media is that you gain relationships with other local businesses. When you get on good terms with other businesses, they are more likely to refer their clients to you! It is also beneficial because I also gain great resources to give to my clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.naturalbeginningsbirth.com/
• Instagram: naturalbeginningsbirth
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/naturalbeginningsbirthservices

Image Credits
Claudette Farthing and Sarah Katumu