As a doula, you can create a sustainable career simply supporting new families in traditional birth and postpartum doula work. However, there are also many ways doulas can earn money outside those traditional roles. The on-call work, emotional load, etc., can mean limited availability for clients.
Juggling your family life and clients can be challenging. If you’re still growing your family, have a partner who travels, or have busy schedules, you may even have seasons where you can’t be on-call.
What do you do with your doula experience when your ability to take clients is limited? You think outside the box!
Here are 5 unique ways doulas can earn money:
#1: Provide Childbirth Education
As a doula, you gain valuable experience through training and working. Many birth doulas choose to take the childbirth education training to expand their services. Work as a childbirth educator is scheduled and more predictable.
Many doula also find they can offer virtual classes, expand their social media presence, and generally increase their birth work income.
If providing comprehensive childbirth education is something you would like to offer, be sure to register for IDI’s childbirth educator certification.
#2: Provide Birth Planning Consultations
Not every family desires full birth doula support. Some birthing families have a lot of support, financial constraints, or prefer the intimacy of just the family. However, they may still need professional guidance and support while preparing for birth.
As a birth doula, you can provide in-person or virtual birth planning consults. You can assist clients in understanding all their options, evidenced based information, and how to make informed decisions.
Your experience and knowledge as a doula makes you a valuable resource for birth planning. Offering birth planning consults as a freestanding service is a great way to expand your birth work business.
#3: Monetized Online Education
Providing online education, e-books, info products, vlogs, and more are great ways to expand your doula business. Expecting and new parents are often looking for evidenced-based knowledge from professionals.
Whether you create your own website, seek work with an established site, or you create products for purchase, there are many ways to utilize your doula work. Online birth work services provide unique ways doulas can earn money.
As doulas, we all want everyone to have adequate access to birth education and support. However, to make doula work our career, we still need to put food on our own tables. Expanding your services allows more families to benefit from your support and knowledge while meeting the needs of your own home.
#4: Facilitate Support Groups and Classes
New parents need support. From new mom support groups to cloth diapering classes, the possibilities are endless for creating more services.
A low-cost support group, one which covers your time, is a great way to support your community. A professionally facilitated support group creates a space for peer support as well as evidenced-based education. Parents can connect and support each other while also having access to your professional knowledge.
Infant care, feeding, cloth diapering, babywearing, sleep, and more are all popular parenting topics new parents seek to learn about. By offering online or in-person classes, you expand your services while supporting more in your community.
If you’ve taken your training seriously and continue to self-educate as a professional, your facilitating and teaching opportunities are endless.
#5: Educate Fellow Professionals
As a new doula, this is not something you can do. However, as you develop years of experience and education, you may have valuable skills you can use to educate fellow professionals.
Some doulas become experts with rebozos, specific comfort techniques, or pelvic awareness. Other doulas are trauma informed, loss doulas, etc. These special skills can be used to offer workshops, online education, and more.
It is important that you be truthful about your experience and credentials. Do not attempt to educate others if you are not qualified.
Seasoned doulas often also offer mentorships, consultation services, and business support for newer doulas.
As birth workers, we want to provide support and education to all. While we would love to provide free services and education, the reality is this work is a lot. It takes our time and energy to learn. It takes our time and energy to provide services. However, unique ways doulas earn money allow for a sustainable birth work career.
Author: Aliza Juliette Bancoff
Aliza Juliette Bancoff is a well-known doula and doula trainer who has been providing doula services to families for over a decade. She is the founder of Main Line Doulas, a doula group providing doula support in the great Philadelphia area for the last decade, the International Doula Institute, which provides online doula training and lactation training and certification programs and the International Breastfeeding Institute which provides lactation training and certification. She is the co-founder of United Birth, a company devoted to increasing access to doulas across the country to make the perinatal time safer both physically and emotionally. “Every birthing person deserves access to quality doula support. And we are working to make that a reality across the country. The work we are doing to get doulas to every birthing person will decrease the black infant and maternal mortality rate significantly by 2030.” Says Bancoff. Aliza is known for her compassionate and empowering approach to doula work, and she has been featured in numerous media outlets, including United Nations Maternal Health Report, Parent Magazine, CafeMom, theBump and many more. Aliza's journey into doula work began when she gave birth to her first child and felt a strong calling...