Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Shannon Sweeney. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Shannon, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later

I started my business the same summer I graduated from college with my Bachelors of Public Health back in 2018. I graduated in May, took my first doula training that July and when that was over, I began building my doula business. I attended my first birth that November.

Having been at this for five years now, I can recognize how being so young, having not yet attended a birth & having little “real life” experience made a lot of the early clients I interviewed with wonder what I was doing there. I was a 22 year old fresh college graduate and brand new birth doula.

I think to many new and expecting parents, it just didn’t make sense to them. Initially, that was the hardest part at first; parents wanted to hire an experienced doula, but no one was willing to hire the “newbie” doula, so getting that experience people wanted felt impossible. It was a cycle for those first few months!

But, eventually I did get booked with those first few clients; I got some experience as a doula and my confidence levels as a professional improved. I don’t think I would change anything about how early I started in birth work and I certainly don’t wish I had started my business later. I have grown so much as a professional birth worker over the last five years. If I had started any later, well, I am not sure I would be where I am now.

Shannon, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Shannon, a certified full-spectrum birth doula, certified postpartum doula, and certified childbirth educator. I have also trained and certified as a birth and bereavement doula with StillBirthday University. My trainings have given me the skills and knowledge to support families through every aspect of their journey, from conception, to the prenatal period, postpartum recovery and beyond. I am a proud doula-graduate of Birthing Advocacy Doula Trainings (BADT) and I am actually BADT’s first triple-certified birth professional.

My love for supporting families during their transition into parenthood began during my undergraduate studies. Since then, I’ve been committed to making a meaningful difference in the lives of my clients. Through my work as a birth doula, I’ve witnessed firsthand the care and support gaps in our highly medicalized healthcare system and truly found my calling to help fill those gaps in supportive care by providing unwavering emotional, physical, and educational support to my clients, their partners and family members. I am passionate about empowering families to make informed decisions about their pregnancy and birth care and supporting them as they navigate the complexities of childbirth.

As a birth professional, I work with my clients solely to support them, their decisions about their care, and their partners. There is no room for judgement in my practice and I strive to make my clients feel seen, heard, appreciated and supported. During labor and birth, I am working with my clients to ensure their comfort during the labor process; even the simplest things like locating their chapstick in their birth bag, refreshing cold compresses for their forehead and neck to providing the more hands-on support of counter-pressure on the hips to ease contractions or helping them change positions in the bed if they have received an epidural for pain relief. I am also always checking in with clients partners; have they slept Have they eaten? Are they hydrated?
My presence as a doula is meant to make clients feel safe and at ease; a friendly face among what sometimes can feel like a revolving door of medical staff.

I think what makes this work so special, aside from the magic that is witnessing a baby be born, is the feedback I get from clients after the fact;

“My husband and I are certainly pleased with the care and support we received from Shannon…when my birth took a turn, she was supportive and helped me feel confident and even though she couldn’t be present for my surgery…she hauled all of our bags and helped organize our postpartum room for when we arrived. I am thankful for the relationship with Shannon during pregnancy, birth and now, postpartum!” – T.B.

“Having Shannon as my birth doula was an absolute blessing. She is very attentive and meets you with where ever you are at in your pregnancy journey. She made me feel safe…” -R.L.

“Shannon is a joy to work with. We experienced high quality of care at each visit and during our labor/delivery. Shannon provided fact based information as well as allowed for each of our questions to be answered to the best of her ability.” – H.F.

This is what helps fuels my passion and keeps me going; knowing that I am in fact making a difference and positively impacting my clients birth experiences. It’s not lost on me how vulnerable of a moment childbirth is and to be welcomed into this space is such a privilege.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

In August of 2020 and in the middle of the COVID pandemic, I made the decision to uproot myself from Massachusetts where I grew up & have lived all of my life to close the long distance relationship I had with my now Fiancé. This also meant uprooting and moving my business, leaving the wonderful network of doulas and lactation providers I have met along the way, to start all over again in Wyoming, in the middle of the pandemic.

Fortunately, the ability to network online did make connecting with other local birth workers possible when meeting in-person was not safe. It was also difficult providing the necessary in-person support to clients at this time. Most hospitals had implemented support person restrictions to one support person only, which was often the pregnant person partner; leaving doulas in the dust and forcing them to take their supportive measures virtual. “Satellite doulas” as we started calling it were fairly popular at this time.

Now, I have been living in Laramie for almost three years and things have more or less returned to a more normalized support structure. Doulas are welcome to support clients and their partners in hospital and I am back to having prenatal and postnatal visits with clients face to face!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One of the lessons I had to unlearn as a doula actually stemmed from something I was taught during my initial doula training; that doulas don’t advocate for clients, but empower them with the tools to advocate for themselves.

On the surface this doesn’t sound like a problem, empowering clients to advocate for themselves should be a good thing and it is. But, it shouldn’t be a doulas primary focus. A doula training organization especially, should not be teaching doulas this and then sending them off to support people giving birth with “don’t advocate for your client” ringing around in their head. This only sets up the doula to experience secondary-trauma and the client to experience interventions they do not want and in some cases, birth trauma.

Doulas are supposed to be there for their client; in fact, the doula is often the only person in the room aside from a partner who has the birthing persons goals, desires and best interests in mind and who isn’t bound by the hospital or their policy.
It was so incredibly hard to grapple with what I learned in that training:
to be there for a client “but not like that”
to provide education to the client and support their wishes
“but not like that”
to support them
“but not like that”

It was incredibly hard to unlearn this and sometimes I still struggle with it, but, in the kind of system we have in the United States, the reality is doulas cannot be anything less than advocates, our clients are depending on us. literally while they labor, to uphold their desires and goals for their birth that we discussed prenatally. This is something that I am so incredibly passionate about now.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thelovelydoula.org
• Instagram: @doingdoulathings
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Thelovelydoulax
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonmsweeney/
• Other: Calendly: https://calendly.com/thelovelydoula/30min