What Does This Doula Burnout Mean For Me?
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Thu, 10/12 04:01AM · 15mins
Welcome to Doula Tips and Tits. This podcast is a place where we answer one question about Dula work, both to support you and to help you support your clients. I'm Kaely Harrod. I've been supporting families in this perinatal space since my oldest was born, 12, nearly 13 years ago.
I am a birth and postpartum Doula childbirth educator, La Leche League leader and a Doula coach. I love guiding and supporting Dulas as they work out their Dula business. It is a tremendous joy to be trusted in this way.
Thank you for joining us on this journey. Welcome back to Doula Tips and Tits. This is the burnout episode number two. Not number two because there's been loads of burnout episodes, but this is the second one of this little duo.
And I wanna talk a little bit more in this one about how to distinguish if you maybe need to take a step back from Dula work. And I wanna talk about it in a little bit of a nuance. And again, I don't know your particular situation.
So what I'm not doing is digging into your scenario and saying like, you know, X person that's listening to this Dula podcast, I know for an absolute fact that you should not be a Dula and you need to stop doing it, right?
That's not what I'm doing. What I want you to think about is realistically where are you in life and does this profession work well for you, right? Or does some variation of this profession work well, but maybe not exactly what you're doing.
So for the sake of this conversation, I'm thinking about this in the lens of you being kind of in a place of burnout at the moment. So that's kind of where I'm gonna have this conversation from. But it's, if you're not there, I think this is still a helpful conversation to think through because you will at some point feel a little on the like burnout scale if you are in this work for any length of time.
So a few things to think about in terms of burnout. Burnout tends to tell us a few different things. A, it tends to communicate to us that we are somehow not meeting a need that we have, or that we are ignoring our own boundaries, which is kind of the same thing, but different language around it, right?
And so as solopreneurs, if you work for yourself, one of the biggest things I think we can do to honor ourselves is to give ourselves the best possible work environment. So imagine for a second that you have a boss who's like, oh my gosh, if you don't feel well, take two days off, right?
Like don't just take today, definitely take tomorrow because today you feel crappy and tomorrow you're gonna need to recover from feeling crappy. And if you have that kind of boss, you would be like, oh, this is lovely because ultimately these two days aren't so detrimental to my work that I can't recover from it.
And also you're right, I do need a day to recover from being sick, maybe a few days, and so think about that and think about this fictional, altruistic boss that you could have and then consider, can you be that for yourself?
Like don't we all want to be a great, loving, caring, compassionate, considerate, like well -balanced, realistic boss? Then be that for yourself, okay? So when we're thinking about boundaries? or like needs that aren't being met.
I'm thinking about things like, you're not getting enough sleep, you're not eating and drinking enough, especially at a birth, or especially like at an overnight shift with a client, right? I'm thinking about like, you don't have enough time for fun, for hobbies, for downtime with your family.
You're not factoring in like having time off or taking time to rest or recuperate or anything like that. You maybe don't have a good like pre and post birth ritual. So those are needs that I'm talking about.
Now, if I'm going through that list and you're already like, Kaley, there are seven things there that I definitely lack. Then I would start there before you make a drastic change and decide you shouldn't be a doula ever again, right?
Because I would guess most people who become doulas are well suited for the job. But because we tend to be more giving people, we already are a like genre of people that sometimes lack boundaries and lack putting ourself and our own needs in front of other people occasionally at least.
So things like drinking plenty of water, you know, listening to good music so you can kind of like jam out and de -stress a little bit. All of that kind of stuff has to happen. It has to happen. If you are not sure how to do that or when to do that or where to do that, go back and listen to some of the other episodes about eating when you're in the midst of a birth or taking care of yourself.
Like what does it look like before and after a birth? How do you do that pre and post birth ritual? Okay? So if that's you, I'd already say you're probably not someone who doesn't need to do this work anymore.
You're probably someone who just needs a lot better boundaries in this work and a lot better self -care. Okay? And I don't say that like it's easy. It's not easy, but it is important. And it's important enough to prioritize it even though it's not easy.
Okay? Now, if you're like, yeah, Kaylee, I do all that. And I still feel incredibly burnt out. I would ask yourself a few questions. And again, I don't know the answers to these questions for you. And I'm not suggesting that I do know those answers and I can't prescribe a certain course of action, right?
All I can do is help you brainstorm, help you think and kind of work down that path. So one question I would ask is, do you feel consistently triggered in your own trauma by the work that you do as a doula?
Like are you physically, emotionally and mentally getting put back into your own trauma place when you are with a client? That's a huge thing. Now, it's not that, again, I don't want you to think you should never be there because if you have past trauma, the reality of that, even if you're actively working to heal it, is that there are triggers around that trauma, right?
But if everything around birth and postpartum triggers it, that's a lot of triggers for you. Like that's a lot of stressors to put yourself through in terms of your own trauma, okay? So that's a factor to consider.
And I would honestly say if that resonates with you, I would really recommend finding some kind of really helpful mental health professional to dig into that a little bit with. Because again, it could be that you don't need to stop being a doula, but you definitely need support around that at the very least, okay?
The second question I want you to ask yourself, so excuse me, So if you resonate with that first question and you're like, that's it, it's my trauma triggers. You don't necessarily need to keep asking yourself these questions, right?
But if you're like, no, it's definitely not that, then keep going, right? Keep listening. So the second question I would recommend asking yourself, is it a physical response? Like is your body struggling with the work?
And again, assess that a little bit. Like I've mentioned in other episodes, I can tag in this episode, my episode about my chronic health stuff. So I have arthritis in my hips. I have PCOS, which is Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.
I have asthma. And I have some chronic pain that's sort of like tied with my PCOS and I have glucose issues because of my PCOS as well. So I have various things that affect me differently in different times.
Thankfully, like my arthritis in my hips, for instance, I did PT for that for a while and my hips don't have much pain hardly ever at all. Occasionally, but not very often, I have like a really good protocol for what I'm doing with that.
My PCOS is pretty well controlled. All of that is managed well, but something like a cold, for instance, for me can make my asthma trigger and flare up really bad. That's usually not a problem for me for being with clients because I can take my inhalers and things like that, but once or twice, I have had to cancel a shift with someone because I'm just not breathing great, right?
And so if I'm going to a bunch of births or a bunch of clients or I'm not sleeping well, that is gonna have a huge impact on my pain levels. It's gonna have a huge impact on my hormones, which will impact my hips.
It's kind of a cascade for me. My hormonal stuff impacts my sleep, which impacts my arthritis, which impacts my, you know, like it's this like terrible cascade. So in my case, that is usually a temporary issue where it's not causing a chronic issue to get worse or to be started, right?
Like I didn't get arthritis in my hips because I'm a doula, right? But did I have to change how I hold myself when I'm doing stuff as a doula? Yes, did I have to change how I rest and how I exercise?
Yes, right? But also being a doula is not necessarily making that worse. I just have to be intentional about how I'm doing it, right? So in a situation where your health is significantly negatively impacted by being a doula and it's going to have a long -term impact on you in a significantly detrimental way, that I think is a reason to really weigh if this work is worth it.
Now I will say in my experience, usually being on call and doing overnight shifts are the two biggest stressors in terms of health factors. Because it's the inconsistency in sleep and eating that cause huge amounts of issues with different people's bodies.
So it's possible that someone who struggles with those two things could do like daytime postpartum care or childbirth education or newborn care or lactation, right? So there are other ways to stay in this field and not be on call and not stay up overnight ever, right?
If you can help it. So that's a factor to consider. Because I think when you're thinking about yourself, what I don't want you to do is do this work and kind of literally give your body away to it in a way that takes it away from you and your family and your own life and your lifespan, right?
Like those are all really important things to factor in. So those are kind of the starting questions I would think about. The other thing is the sustainability piece, right? Like I hesitate to say that I think you should consider not being a doula because you don't get paid well enough.
Because I think how much you get paid depends on you quite a bit. Like you can change your prices, right? If you right now feel resentful for what you're getting paid, you're not getting paid enough.
And you need to raise your prices. And I'm gonna do an episode, I have an episode coming up about how do you know, like I guess how do you know it's time to raise your prices? And I mean, spoiler alert, there's not just one way to know, right?
Like there's not just like one magical time when your prices should be raised. But also I wanna give kind of the backdrop of how I have raised my prices over time and how much better it is in my business and how much better it is for me and my family.
And how much more sustainable this work is for me given the fact that I've done that. So look for that in a future episode that is coming because I think it's incredibly important and I wanna make sure that we dig into that together.
So this burnout topic is heavy. And I really love connecting with doulas who are listening to these podcasts. And I would be more than happy to troubleshoot this with you a little bit or even just have a quick conversation and give some encouragement and some empathy.
The easiest way to connect with me is over on Instagram at Heradula, that's how you can find me over there. Send me a message, I would be more than happy to connect with you and kind of be one more sounding board around this topic, okay?
All right, I'll see you in the next episode. I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Dula Tips and Tits podcast. If you learned something today or had an aha moment, we'd love for you to share that on Instagram and tag us at Heradula so we can celebrate alongside you.
If you found this podcast helpful, we would so appreciate you taking a second to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast app. That helps other Dulas find us as we do this work together. This podcast is intended as educational and entertainment.
It is not medical advice or business advice. Please consult your own medical or legal team for your own needs around your health and your business. We'll see you again soon. you
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Doulas are an essential part of the childbirth process, providing emotional support, advocacy, and education to expectant parents. However, the work of a doula can take a toll on their own bodies and minds. In this podcast, we delve into the questions to ask yourself to determine if you’re experiencing burnout that can be overcome or burnout that’s telling you to step away from some aspect of this work.
Quote from the show:
“One question I would ask is, do you feel consistently triggered in your own trauma by the work that you do as a doula?
Like are you physically, emotionally and mentally getting put back into your own trauma place when you are with a client? That's a huge thing. Now, it's not that, again, I don't want you to think you should never be there because if you have past trauma, the reality of that, even if you're actively working to heal it, is that there are triggers around that trauma, right?
But if everything around birth and postpartum triggers it, that's a lot of triggers for you. Like that's a lot of stressors to put yourself through in terms of your own trauma, okay? So that's a factor to consider.”
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Kaely Daily is produced by Kaely Harrod of Harrod Doula Services
It is sponsored by The Birth Prep Blueprint Childbirth Class
Music by Madirfan: Hidden Place on Pixabay
