Thriving During Trying Times as a Doula with Lindsey Bowns
Melanie Nicholson is joined by Lindsey Bowns, owner of Adora Birth + Wellness and a certified doula, to talk about exactly what a doula is and what a doula does. Lindsey explains the original theory behind being a doula and why having one can be so helpful, as well as how she made her business thrive during the pandemic.
Lindsey did not start her career in anything related to birth, she started in marketing for research and development. When she had a doula for her own birth, however, it was so impactful that, combined with the physiology and psychology knowledge she gained about birth, it moved her to change careers. Lindsey and Melanie discuss the impact having a doula can make, including reduction in caesareans, and how the information they give can help cut through all the conflicting pieces of advice available. Lindsey understands what is needed in a birthing situation, the emotional safety required as well as the physical safety, and throughout the conversation, a greater understanding and admiration for the work of doulas is fostered.
“You know, even we as doulas say and feel that we need to be doula'd through things because when you are in the medical world and when you are mired in the feelings that come with all these big changes that are happening to you or to your person or to your family, you get so deep in the emotional side and thinking about how it's going to change your life that it can be really hard to navigate. So to have a person in your scenario who can be a guidepost as to making care decisions, knowing all your options, presenting you with additional information that could improve things, I would highly recommend taking advantage of that in whatever form you can access it.” - Lindsey Bowns
About Lindsey Bowns
Lindsey Bowns is a Certified Doula and Birth Photographer in Calgary. She's also a girl-mom, a self-proclaimed sour candy sommelier, and a sweat-enthusiast. Need proof? She wore running shoes during her own labor, WITH her hospital gown!
Her excitement about birth, parenthood, and genuine friendships led her to doula work in 2019. Her modern, judgement-free outlook makes her feel like a safe place to land as your friend who is cool with discussing placentas during pedicures and breastfeeding over brunch.
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Contact Melanie Nicholson | Melanie Lynn Communications Inc.
Contact Lindsey Bowns | Adora Birth + Wellness
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Transcript
Melanie Nicholson: [00:00:03] Welcome to It's a Theory. I'm your host, Melanie Nicholson, and I love hearing about entrepreneurs who are not only building a business, but also making waves in an industry as well. Which is why I wanted to talk to Lindsey Bowns, the owner of Adora Birth and Wellness. Lindsey is a certified doula and birth photographer in Calgary. She's also a girl mom, a self-proclaimed sour candy sommelier and a sweat enthusiast. Need proof? She wore running shoes during her own labor with her hospital gown. Lindsey's excitement about birth, parenthood and genuine friendships led her to doula work in 2019. She's built a massive following on Instagram with a modern judgment-free approach to birth and babies and the whole space. Today, we're diving into the original theory behind being a doula. Why it matters and how Lindsey's working to change the game, all through a pandemic, no less. Let's talk. Uh, Lindsey, welcome to the podcast.
Lindsey Bowns: [00:01:07] Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Melanie Nicholson: [00:01:09] I'm so excited to have you here. I have known Lindsey a very long time. We'll tell you a bit about our cross-parallel stories as we go through this conversation. I want to start, we're talking about the theory behind being a doula, why it matters, some of the work Lindsey's done there. But I do want to start, for people who do not know, what is a doula? Especially when you think about doulas and midwives and the different pregnant support people. What is a doula?
Lindsey Bowns: [00:01:39] In its simplest form, the word doula is of Greek origin and it means one who serves or a woman who serves, so in the context of birth and postpartum, now, obviously that can cover a wide range of topics, and so I like to relate it back to being like a concierge, for myself, more so birth, pregnancy and birth, providing information, providing referrals to practitioners, suggesting things to buy or not buy, helping you with decision making, anything that is feeling mentally taxing on you during your pregnancy or birth experience is something that I would be able to help you with.
Melanie Nicholson: [00:02:19] How did you get there? You were in marketing?
Lindsey Bowns: [00:02:22] I was.
Melanie Nicholson: [00:02:23] In post-secondary, in research and development. How do you go from that space to being a doula?
Lindsey Bowns: [00:02:30] Yeah, that's a great question. And I think before the time of being in marketing, there was always something that resonated with me about physicality. And, you know, I had different aspirations of getting into chiropractic or massage therapy kinesiology. And so that was always in the back of my mind. And then as part of my own birth experience, I had a doula. This was very impactful to my birth story. And between putting together kind of that physiology and psychology knowledge about my birth, as well as working with a doula and knowing how that impacted my story, it made sense to pair those two things together and be able to give this back to other people.
Melanie Nicholson: [00:03:15] I want to talk about that for a second. You and I were pregnant at the same time. Our children are three weeks apart. You had a doula. I did not. The amount of misinformation, confusion, mixed messages, it is exhausting and it is stressful. I remember one day over the course of four hours, I had two different doctor's appointments because I had two different clinics. That's a whole other story. But in the space of four hours, one of them told me that my weight was too high and one of them told me my weight was too low and they gave over, the whole doctor's appointments, each of them were so contradictory. And so I came home and, well, I stopped and bought cookies on the way home because I was sad about life and I was confused and I was overwhelmed. And I felt like that the whole pregnancy, it can be a very overwhelming experience. Is that where you can come in and help? Like, is that part of where you help that?
Lindsey Bowns: [00:04:15] Absolutely. You know, Dr. Google provides us so much information but also gives us so much incorrect information or leads us down these paths with mommy bloggers and mom Facebook groups and these places that can give us poor information or make us feel bad about ourselves or can validate misinformation that we've already received. You know, from your doctor's appointment, you probably could have gone online and researched that, oh, you were underweight or you were overweight and that wouldn't have left you in any better of a place. So I always recommend to my clients that instead of Dr. Googling and going down the rabbit hole, they reach out to me and we start in a place of evidence and also start in a place of uncovering their feelings about any given topic. Something that was so impactful to my birth experience was that when certain interventions were recommended to me, rather than respond immediately with a like, Oh, that's too bad, or Oh, that's great news, my doula's first response was to say, okay, well how do you feel about that? And that would always recenter me on okay, how do I feel about that? What do I even know about this to shape my feelings about it? And lots of times we haven't even had space to think about that because people start layering on us like, Oh, that's unfortunate. Oh, that happened to me and it was fine. People are putting a tint on the information that we're receiving. So to be able to pull it back and go, okay, what does this mean to me? And is it problematic and something that I want to rectify or like apply some kind of change to, or is it something that I'm happy about, or happy to sit with, that can change things?
Melanie Nicholson: [00:06:00] What do most people get wrong about doulas and the entire profession?
Lindsey Bowns: [00:06:05] I think the most common misconception is that we are pregnancy care providers, that we are someone who comes in place of a midwife and that we provide medical care in the birth space. We do not. You would still have a medical care provider, a doctor, an OB-GYN or a midwife, looking after the medical, the safety aspects of your pregnancy. Is baby safe on the inside? How is their heart rate? How's your heart rate? Blood pressure, rashes, nausea, morning sickness, all these things that come up during pregnancy, they're there for that. We are there for the social, emotional side and more of the logistical learnings that will play into your birth experience and afterwards.
Melanie Nicholson: [00:06:51] But you're still really focused on science and research. And that's one of the things I really want to talk to you about in terms of how you're really changing the narrative around being a doula that, yes, it's that social emotional support, but you have built a business, mostly using Instagram, with science and research at the foundation. What does that look like and was that strategic or was that accidental, how you made that leap?
Lindsey Bowns: [00:07:17] I think it was a little bit strategic in that it is very easy to find that misinformation and be peppered with that. And so to make it equally as easy to find the good information was important to me. To make it bite-sized and accessible, easy to understand. I also find, and maybe you had found as part of your pregnancy as well, that when we go to these medical appointments, people like to talk to us as if we're from the medical field or as if we're doctors. And so they use a lot of jargon. They often don't throw around even the backstory or the statistics. They just give you the recommendation. And because it's coming from a medical practitioner, you're supposed to resonate with that and go like, Oh yeah, of course. And as much as we trust doctors, midwives, care providers, when that information is being thrown at us and on us, as opposed to having a chance to kind of distill it within your own mind and body and go, Yeah, that makes sense, it doesn't feel the same. And so part of me putting out this evidence-based information was to give people that time and space to go through the decision-making or the information understanding process and get to that same point of, Yeah, that makes sense and I agree.
Melanie Nicholson: [00:08:48] One of the things you've talked about quite frequently that I've seen over the last several years is the ability of doulas to reduce cesarean sections, and the percentages are quite high. How does that work? What, how does the support of a doula actually reduce caesareans? Because caesareans, if I recall, are one of the top surgery, the most practiced surgery in our province in Alberta. So how does having a doula reduce that?
Lindsey Bowns: [00:09:14] We can take it quite far back into conversations prenatally about things that are going to come up as part of your birth experience. I have many clients who come to me around that 30 week time frame saying, Well, my doctor says that from the ultrasound, my baby is looking really big. We should schedule an induction or we should schedule a caesarean to make sure that baby doesn't get too big and have an easier birth experience. And the evidence just doesn't necessarily support interventions in that way or through that kind of prescriptive method. And so when we can take it back to, okay, well, the evidence says that if we do X, well, then Y and then Z, and it may lead us - that early, early induction for a big baby - may lead us towards a cesarean. There are things like that that in understanding the evidence and slowing down that decision-making process, giving you latitude to feel like you can say, well, could we wait a few extra weeks to see if I spontaneously go into labor? What actually is the risk of me not being able to birth such a big baby when we can slow that down? That in itself can help us avoid interventions and reduce caesareans. And I think not all doulas have an equal understanding of the physiology of birth, but for those who have kind of a more advanced understanding of physiology and birth positioning, our application of different positions in Labor can make Labor easier and have baby in a better position to be able to exit the traditional way and not through the sunroof. So that is another way that we can support a reduction of caesareans.
Melanie Nicholson: [00:10:55] You launched your business. You had, what? A year under your belt? Maybe two. And then it was a pandemic.
Lindsey Bowns: [00:11:01] Even less, actually. I took my doula training just one year before COVID hit, and I had about three births under my belt before COVID.
Melanie Nicholson: [00:11:11] So they closed hospitals. Extra support staff aren't allowed in. Let's talk about that. I mean, we're talking about implementing ideas. You've got this idea, you've got this business plan and you're ready to roll with it. And three births later, the world shifts, especially when it comes to healthcare access. What was that experience like for you and how did you, not to overuse the word pivot, but how did you pivot your way into being able to continue to provide support in a different way?
Lindsey Bowns: [00:11:41] Yeah. You know, when I launched my business, obviously ahead of COVID and with no context of how that was going to change things, my underlying idea of how this was going to be successful, having a background in marketing and sales a little bit, was that I was going to make this successful by winning the Internet. And once COVID hit, that still was at the core of my business because now everything was on the Internet. So my best play was still to win the Internet, to be the best information, to be the most up-to-date information, the most up-to-the-minute, easily accessible. That was my play. And so when everything shut down, people, everybody was panicked, obviously, we have all felt that sense of panic out of restriction and the grief and loss that came with that. But especially people who are pregnant, they were so fearful for how that was going to change their birth experience. Were they going to be separated from their birth partner, their baby? Were they going to be forced to give birth at home because they had a sore throat? So to be able to take the information we had at the time and be so easily accessible when all people were doing was being tethered to their phone or a screen, and marry that together, that was where we went.
Melanie Nicholson: [00:13:02] And you walked a very fine line, I would say, in the political sphere during COVID, because the politics was heavy, both nationally, provincially, locally. Everyone was dealing with it in different ways. We had vaccine mandates. There was different perspectives, different opinions. You were trying, and we watched it, walk a very fine line. How do you navigate that? Are you happy with how you navigated that in terms of subtly calling people out? Did you directly call people out? Did you, where did you land there? And how did you, do you feel about where you ended up?
Lindsey Bowns: [00:13:43] Yeah. You know, I think the most direct calling out that I did was actually a bit of an anti-calling out. It was the calling out of the people who were laying judgment upon the other side in one way or another. Part of my methodology in helping people access good quality information, even when the answer is maybe what they don't want to hear, is with kindness and understanding of where they are currently at. And so, for example, when the labor and delivery unit at Rocky View Hospital was exposed due to some visitors like Labor support people coming in knowing that they were COVID-positive and not disclosing that information so that they could come in, rather than just shame that perspective on social media, I actually came out and did a video and presented the other perspective of like, okay, well, you need to put yourself in the shoes of this person who was going to leave their birth partner behind. They were going to miss the birth of possibly their only baby. And it didn't really matter what the risk was to the unit. These are the things that they were feeling, and it doesn't justify their actions, but if you put yourself in their shoes, how does that feel? We can understand maybe why that happened. And so it was always with this overarching leading with kindness and an understanding of the other perspective or allowing you to feel like this complexity of where you were at, Oh, I feel like I'm scared to get vaccinated, but I want to do it because I know it's the right thing, but I'm still scared and I'm stuck in that tug of war. There was a lot of that with respect to who should I see, where should I go, what kind of risk should I take or should I not take? So meeting people where they were at in terms of those big feelings.
Melanie Nicholson: [00:15:45] It's almost like we've lost, as a society, a level of empathy for pregnancy and for mom, because the mother before, who's been through it, and the mother over here who's been through it, and grandma's done it and I gave birth to ten times and over here... and so it's if someone is struggling and if someone isn't sure or feeling emotional, is that fair to say? Like, are you running into that? Like is empathy harder to come by these days?
Lindsey Bowns: [00:16:16] I would say that it is. And there's often this element of smoothing over. I see it in labor rooms all the time that, oh, healthy mom, healthy baby. Oh, I know this isn't what you wanted, but it's the safest choice. I know this isn't what you wanted, but you're okay. It'll be okay. And there's this acknowledgment of what is to come and how that is a negative and how it's not maybe what we wanted, but it must be a good thing, a fine thing, because it's going to lead us to a safe outcome. But physically safe is not the only factor. There's this psychologically safe and emotionally safe perspective as well. So that's also where a doula comes into play, is being the person to be able to slow that down and bring the empathy of what you're feeling in this moment. I very often send clients who have gone as far as getting fully dilated, they push for 2 or 3 hours and we decide that baby is just not coming, maybe we should go to a C-section, I very often send them out of the room with a hug and a like, This sucks and it's okay to feel like it sucks and you're going to be happy to meet your baby. Of course you are. And you're going to be happy that they're safe. But you can also feel disappointed at the way that that went down. So to not just smooth that over and like, yeah, but we have a healthy mom, healthy baby. So you had a successful birth experience.
Melanie Nicholson: [00:17:45] 100%. And I mean, you've been vocal about choice. I think choice is so important. And obviously safety does come to play. And I think making sure mothers know they have choices when it comes to their birth. And I know you're there to help advocate for them. Have you experienced moments where a mom was not listened to when it was safe to continue the direction they were going? Do you run into that? Is it, are we seeing that in certain pockets? What does that look like?
Lindsey Bowns: [00:18:17] I think what more often we see is people being sort of subtly shamed for the choices they have already made. Times that we go to the hospital and someone gives them like a, oh, you know, you're 41 weeks and 6 days. Like, why didn't we see you a week ago for an induction? Oh, well, you're so late-term and there's meconium in your amniotic fluid, of course there is. Maybe we should have come in a little earlier. Next baby maybe we come in for an induction. Next baby, if you haven't had them by 39 and 5. So again, that leads into that smoothing over of feelings of, Well, but we're here now and we're safe. And you should be grateful that we're safe with no acknowledgment of the feelings that led them to make those choices.
Melanie Nicholson: [00:19:11] Where do you go from here when you think about what you've built so far? I mean, you've built this huge following on Instagram. You've got a very well-respected client base. People come back to you because of their experience the first time around. So where do you go and what does success look like for you in this industry?
Lindsey Bowns: [00:19:32] Yeah, I am in such a privileged position to be fully booked and I don't really have to fight for clients or do much advertising anymore. So that leaves me in a place where obviously I am happy and excited to continue coming back and just doing the work of going to births. But it also gives me more capacity to share the role of a doula with other families. I'm on the board of the Doula Association of Alberta and as part of this position, have taken a closer role with Alberta Health Services in the integration of doulas within their world. And I think there's space for that to happen more on a provincial, on a national level as well. I'd love to pursue some conversations with more insurance companies about having doula services covered. I'd love to pursue conversations about setting up grants or foundations to be able to provide these services to more people who could really use them. Through my training organization, one of the tenets that we have agreed to as being certified doulas is a doula for every person who wants one and I think a doula is still very much, in this time and space and economy of where we are right now today, a luxury service. There are many people who land in my DMS on Instagram saying I would love to work with you, but I just can't afford it. And from the perspective of someone who will, you know, rub your back and take your picture, of course, that's more of a luxury, but from the perspective of someone who can help your birth be more physiological, who can reduce your risk of cesarean by up to 30%, who is associated with better statistical health and psychological wellness of both mom and baby, that feels like something that we should, we as a society should be able to provide to more people. And so I think that is part of my upcoming trajectory, is figuring out how I can make that a reality.
Melanie Nicholson: [00:21:42] Access.
Lindsey Bowns: [00:21:44] Absolutely.
Melanie Nicholson: [00:21:45] 100%. I love it. Is there anything else you'd like to share with us before we go?
Lindsey Bowns: [00:21:49] I think just for anyone who is new to the world of birth or even the world of health care, if you're pursuing some kind of personal issue for yourself or your family that feels complex, I would recommend reaching out to a doula or finding some sort of family support advocate who can help slow things down for you in that process. You know, even we as doulas say and feel that we need to be doula'd through things because when you are in the medical world and when you are mired in the feelings that come with all these big changes that are happening to you or to your person or to your family, you get so deep in the emotional side and thinking about how it's going to change your life that it can be really hard to navigate. So to have a person in your scenario who can be a guidepost as to making care decisions, knowing all your options, presenting you with additional information that could improve things, I would highly recommend taking advantage of that in whatever form you can access it.
Melanie Nicholson: [00:23:05] Thank you so much for being part of the conversation today.
Lindsey Bowns: [00:23:08] Thanks for having me.
Melanie Nicholson: [00:23:13] I love hearing how people are taking science and research and applying them into a business space, how they're walking a fine line from a political space, how they are continuing to push through and find different ways. I love Lindsey's focus on empathy and accessibility and really, where do we go from here? Huge thank you to Lindsey Bowns for joining us today. Thank you for listening. Please like subscribe and consider giving us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Catch you next time on It's a Theory.