Over the past while I’ve been hearing the same thing from birth workers again and again:

“Things feel quieter.”

Fewer enquiries.
Fewer bookings.
Calendars that suddenly feel lighter than they did a few months ago.

Doulas, lactation consultants, antenatal educators and other birth professionals have been reaching out asking if I’m seeing the same thing.

And the honest answer is… yes. I’ve noticed it too. Normally when business slows down, we reach for the obvious explanation: the economy, the cost-of-living crisis, families having less disposable income. Those things may well play a part.

But in this episode I explore another possibility that I think many of us are experiencing but not always naming out loud.

Right now we are living and working through a moment of collective emotional heaviness. We are witnessing war, humanitarian crises and rising violence against immigrants, women and LGBTQ+ people in real time through our phones and social media feeds.

For empathetic, care-centred professionals like birth workers, that emotional weight doesn’t just stay in the background. It can affect our energy, motivation and creativity. And when our energy shifts, it naturally changes how we show up in our businesses.

In this episode that I just had to make I talk about the possible connection between global events, emotional burnout and quieter bookings, and why this may be affecting birth workers across the world right now. Most importantly, we talk about the importance of community, solidarity and supporting each other through times like this.

Because birth work has always been rooted in community. And in difficult moments, community matters more than ever.

In This Episode We Explore

• Why many birth workers are noticing slower bookings right now
• The natural ups and downs of running a birth work business
• Why the economy might not be the only explanation
• How global events and collective trauma can affect our energy and visibility
• The emotional impact of constantly witnessing suffering in the world
• Why empathetic care professionals often carry this weight deeply
• Reflections around International Women’s Day and women’s rights globally
• Why community and connection with other birth workers is so important right now
• Ways we can support one another while continuing to support the families who need us

A Reminder for Birth Workers

If your business feels quieter right now, or your energy has been lower than usual, you are not alone. Most of us are navigating the emotional weight of the world while continuing to care for families in our communities right now. 

This episode is an invitation to reflect, to reconnect with the bigger picture of the work we do, and to remember that none of us are meant to do this work in isolation.

Community, solidarity and mutual support have always been at the heart of birth work and they are just as essential for sustaining our businesses as they are for supporting the families we serve.

If this episode resonated with you, I’d genuinely love to hear your thoughts.

You can connect with me on Instagram or learn more about my work supporting doulas, lactation consultants and antenatal educators to grow sustainable businesses through Your Birth Biz.

And if you know another birt

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If your income goes up and down each month and you’ve ever felt stressed, guilty, or unsure about your money this episode is going to hit you right in the feels. 

I’m joined by financial coaches and business partners Shana and Vanessa (aka the Budget Besties), who help women create simple, realistic budgeting systems that actually work in real life... not the restrictive, spreadsheet-heavy versions most of us have been taught to dread. Together we unpack how to manage money confidently even when your income isn’t predictable, and why budgeting doesn’t have to mean cutting out everything you enjoy.

We chat about:

• why so many women avoid looking at their finances (and how to change that)
• the simple budget structure anyone can set up in under an hour
• how to pay yourself consistently from a business with fluctuating income
• separating business and personal finances in a way that actually makes sense
• why “not tracking every transaction” might be the system that finally works for you
• how to remove guilt around spending money on yourself
• the mindset shift that helps you feel like a real business owner, not just someone with a hobby that sometimes pays

This conversation is especially helpful for birth workers, freelancers, and anyone self-employed whose income changes from month to month. If you’ve ever worried about slow seasons, irregular payments, or feeling like money disappears as soon as it arrives, you’ll walk away with practical strategies you can implement straight away.

Resources & Links

• Listen to Shana & Vanessa’s podcast: Financial Coaching for Women
• Learn more about their budgeting system: budgetbesties.com/niamh

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Take a screenshot, share it on Instagram, and tag me so I can hear your biggest takeaway. Your messages genuinely make my day and help more people find the show.

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Do we really all have the same 24 hours? Discover how time, capacity, and life seasons affect business growth — especially for busy birth workers and parents. 

Do we really all have the same 24 hours in a day? Technically yes. But in real life — with caring responsibilities, client work, family life, emotional labour, and everything else on your plate — time does not feel equal. In this honest and grounding episode, Niamh unpacks the myth behind the popular phrase and shares a more realistic, compassionate way to think about productivity, growth, and success as a birth worker or service-based business owner.

This conversation explores why comparing your pace to someone else’s rarely tells the full story, how your current life season impacts your business capacity, and why slower growth doesn’t mean you’re failing — it often means you’re building sustainably.

You’ll also hear a powerful reframe: instead of chasing perfect balance, think of your life and work like a pendulum that naturally swings depending on what needs you most. And if you’ve ever felt like your business demands constant attention, Niamh shares a reassuring analogy that will change how you view your growth journey.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why “we all have the same 24 hours” is misleading advice
• The difference between time equality and capacity equality
• How caring roles impact business growth (and why that’s normal)
• Why balance isn’t the goal — and what to aim for instead
• The pendulum approach to managing work and life seasons
• How to recognise what stage your business is in right now
• Why effort still matters — even when life is full
• A healthier way to measure progress without burnout or comparison

Key Takeaway

You don’t need more strategies. You need clarity about your real capacity and permission to grow at a pace that fits your life.

Continue the conversation:
Come join us in the free community and share — what season are you in right now, and where is your pendulum today?

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What does it really take to get started in birth work — and stay there?

In this episode, I’m joined by Jen Crawford, life and business coach, parent educator, mentor and doula trainer, with over 15 years’ experience supporting families and shaping skilled, grounded birth workers across Ireland. Between us, we’ve:

• trained and mentored hundreds of birth workers
• supported thousands of families
• built and scaled sustainable birth-work businesses
• and seen far too many brilliant practitioners leave this work unnecessarily due to burnout, lack of support, or unrealistic expectations.

In this honest, grounded and at times possibly controversial conversation, we’re coming together as two of Ireland and Europe’s leading voices in birth work and birth-business to share what we both wish we’d known when we were starting out, and what we now know makes the biggest difference.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why birth work may be a calling, but it still needs to be a viable career
• The foundations every birth worker needs before worrying about visibility or marketing
• Mindset shifts that help you move from passion to sustainability
• Values, boundaries and energy management in emotionally demanding work
• Why “there’s not enough work” is a myth, and what actually matters instead
• The dangers of black-and-white thinking and fear-based narratives in birth work
• Collaboration vs conflict within maternity systems
• How to protect yourself from burnout and stay in this work long-term
• The role of support, community and professional guidance when you’re starting out

This episode is for you if:

• You’re considering training as a doula, lactation consultant, antenatal educator or other birth worker
• You’re newly qualified and wondering “Why is this harder than I thought?”
• You love the work but feel unsure about how to make it sustainable
• You want a values-led, ethical approach to birth work and business
• You’re tired of absolutist advice and want nuance, realism and encouragement

Jen and I both believe that there is plenty of work for everyone and that birth work is really just a fledgling industry with so much more growth potential. We are both hurt by seeing good birth workers quit and this conversation is about changing that, starting from the very beginning.

About Jen Crawford

Jen is a life and business coach, parent educator, mentor and doula trainer with over 15 years’ experience. She has trained and mentored hundreds of doulas, supported thousands of families, and co-founded Ireland’s first national doula agency. In 2026, she continues to lead group doula trainings and coach birth workers across Ireland and internationally.

You can connect with Jen here:

Website: jen-crawford.com

Doula training: @jencrawforddoulawisdom

Coaching: @jencrawfordcoaching

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Naming your business can feel like one of the biggest, most loaded decisions you’ll ever make, especially when you work in the birth and postpartum space, where identity, values, and care are so closely tied to what we do.

In this episode, I’m sharing the full story behind my recent rebrand to Your Birth Biz, why I moved away from The Pregnancy & Postnatal Entrepreneurs Collective, and what the process taught me about fear, confidence, and allowing your business to evolve as you do.

I also take you back to the very beginning, to when I was naming my antenatal education business, My Baby Beginnings, and how I deliberately chose a name that could grow with me over time. From there, I explore the common tension between choosing a strong “brand” name versus a more SEO-friendly, descriptive business name...and why there isn’t one right answer.

This episode is part personal story, part practical guidance, and part permission slip. Whether you’re naming your business for the first time or wondering if the name you chose no longer fits, this conversation is for you.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why I originally chose the name Pregnancy & Postnatal Entrepreneurs Collective
• How fear and a desire to “include everyone” can influence business naming
• The difference between a brand name and an SEO-friendly name (and the pros and cons of each)
• Practical tips for naming your business when you’re starting out
• Why your business name is not a lifetime sentence
• How to recognise when it might be time to rebrand
• What Your Birth Biz stands for now, and who it’s for

This episode is for you if:

• You’re stuck trying to name your birth or postpartum business
• You’re worried about choosing the “wrong” name
• You feel disconnected from your current brand or business name
• You want to build a business that’s ethical, sustainable, and aligned with your values

At its core, this episode is about permission — permission to grow, to change, and to choose what supports you now, not just what felt safe at the beginning.

✨ Explore the new website at yourbirthbiz.com
✨ Join the conversation in the Pregnancy & Postnatal Entrepreneurs Collective discussion group

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In this episode, Niamh is joined by Aoife Lennon, perinatal educator, IBCLC, former Home Economics teacher and founder of Bumps & Bainne. Aoife describes herself as a “full-time challenger of the polite nonsense that surrounds birth and breastfeeding” — and this conversation very much lives up to that energy.

Aoife shares her journey from nearly 20 years in secondary teaching to building a values-led birth work business, shaped by her own birth experiences, motherhood, and a powerful shift in priorities. We talk honestly about fear, identity, financial risk, mindset work, and what it really takes to step away from a “safe” career and back yourself.

This episode goes deep into themes that so many birth workers grapple with but don’t always say out loud:
 – feeling called to this work but unsure how to make it sustainable
 – the emotional weight of leaving a pensionable job
 – the importance of community (or “the village”) in both motherhood and business
– why not everyone needs to like you ... and why that’s actually a good thing
– leaning into your authentic voice online, even when it feels uncomfortable

Aoife also speaks candidly about building her business slowly and steadily, charging her worth, and the role that mindset and peer support have played in helping her stay the course. This is a conversation about courage, feminism, motherhood, and redefining success on your own terms without the hustle-bro nonsense.

If you’re a doula, lactation consultant, antenatal educator or birth worker who’s ever thought “there has to be another way”, this episode will land right in your chest.

Connect with Aoife:

• Instagram: @bumps_and_bainne
• Website: www.bumpsandbainne.ie

If this episode resonated with you, send us a DM and let us know what landed. These conversations matter — and you’re not meant to do any of this alone.

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In this episode of The Pregnancy & Postnatal Entrepreneurs Collective Podcast, I’m joined by Parnuuna Thornwood, guide and teacher behind Feel Good Rebel, for a calm, grounding conversation about visibility that doesn’t ask you to override yourself to grow your business.

What I loved most about this conversation was Parnuuna's tone  - calm, warm, and deeply respectful of the fact that visibility can feel genuinely hard, especially for birth and postpartum professionals. There’s no pushing, no “just get over it”, and no one-size-fits-all strategy. Instead, we explore visibility as something that can be built incrementally, at a pace that feels safe and sustainable.

We talk about how many people say “social media just isn’t for me”, and how often that belief is tied not to capability, but to fear, past experiences, or a lack of safety -  both online and in real life. Parnuuna brings a nervous-system-aware lens to visibility, reminding us that if your body feels unsafe, forcing yourself to show up more will only create resistance or burnout.

A big part of the conversation centres on why blindly following someone else’s strategy doesn’t work for so many people. While structure and guidance can be helpful, growth rarely comes from copying, instead , it comes from being supported to develop your own way of showing up. This is where coaching becomes so valuable: not to remove fear entirely, but to stop fear from keeping you invisible and stuck.

We also name something that often goes unspoken, the reality that there are genuinely unsafe things in the world, and it makes sense that visibility can trigger fear. At the same time, we explore how much energy gets lost worrying about what friends, family, or the imaginary person in the corner might think...the people who were never meant to be your clients in the first place!

Instead, this episode invites you to gently shift your focus:
 away from posting for posting’s sake,
 away from external pressure,
 and towards relationship-building, connection, and service.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why visibility feels easier for doulas, lactation consultants, antenatal educators and women in general when it’s calm, gentle and incremental
• How a lack of safety — not laziness or confidence — often sits under resistance
• The nervous system’s role in showing up online
• Why following someone else’s strategy can disconnect you from yourself
• The difference between fear that needs compassion and fear that needs boundaries
• Letting go of worries about friends, family, or imagined judgement
• Why visibility works best when it’s about relationships, not performance

It’s a reminder that visibility doesn’t have to be loud, constant or performative — it can be human, relational, and rooted in safety.

🎧 Listen now and explore what visibility could look like when it’s built on trust rather than pressure.

Parnuuna has kindly shared a free calming 3 day reset, to boost your sense of
confidence, time and energy, you can sign up here:
https://feelgoodrebel.kit.com/0d761c0f86

Connect with Parnuuna

Website: feelgoodrebelacademy.com

Instagram: @

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Have you ever been offered something in your business that looked brilliant on paper — but felt wrong in your gut?

A collaboration, a speaking gig, a brand opportunity, a new direction for your work — and instead of excitement, you felt unsettled, conflicted or quietly uncomfortable.

If you’re a doula, lactation consultant, antenatal educator or birth worker, this experience is far more common than you might realise.

In this episode, I’m talking about mission, principles and values in your birth work business — what they actually are (not the fluffy corporate version) and why they quietly shape every decision you make, whether you realise it or not.

This is not about branding or writing something pretty for your website.
 It’s about clarity, alignment and confidence in how you run your business.

Episode Timestamps: Mission, Principles & Values in Your Birth Work Business

01:10 – “It looks good on paper but feels wrong”
Why so many birth workers struggle with business decisions despite being highly skilled

02:40 – Why strategy alone isn’t enough in a birth work business
The missing foundations beneath marketing, pricing and Instagram tactics

04:10 – What mission, principles and values really are (not the fluffy version)
Why this is about clarity and alignment, not branding

06:00 – What happens when your business feels misaligned
How saying yes to the wrong things slowly disconnects you from your calling

07:30 – Using your mission and values as a decision filter in business
How to decide what to say yes and no to as a birth worker

11:10 – My own mission statement as a birth worker
How evidence-based care, human rights and social justice shape my work

13:30 – Why your mission is more than a website statement
How it guides your services, marketing and long-term direction

15:10 – What values are (and what they are not)
Why values are not personality traits or buzzwords

18:40 – Fear vs misalignment in business decisions
How to tell the difference between nerves and true value conflict

20:30 – What happens when you ignore your values
Cognitive dissonance, regret and ethical drift in business

22:40 – What a values-driven organisation looks like in real life
Lessons from working in a homeless charity with lived organisational values

25:10 – Stewardship and quality as working business values
How real values guide everyday decisions, not just big ones

27:30 – How this shaped how I run my own business today
Applying organisational values to a solo birth work business

29:00 – Saying no to misaligned opportunities (even good ones)
Why I declined a major speaking opportunity on ethical grounds

34:00 – How values guide content and visibility decisions
Why I sometimes don’t post things that don’t align, even if they’d perform well

36:20 – Why mission and values make business simpler, not harder
Reducing decision fatigue and overwhelm in self-employed birth work

38:00 – Using your mission and values when you feel unsure
How written clarity helps you decide whether something is fear or misalignment

40:00 – Invitation to reflect on your own mission and values
Why ever

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As birthworkers, visualisation is something we trust deeply. We use it every day with clients to prepare for birth, reduce fear, build confidence, and support emotional and physical readiness.

But when it comes to our own businesses, many of us stop using this powerful tool altogether.

In this episode, I explore how visualisation can support you as a birth worker not just in birth preparation, but in business growth, confidence, decision-making and sustainability. We look at why so many of us under-utilise visualisation in business, how it’s used in sports psychology, and how belief often needs to come before evidence.

The episode finishes with a guided future visualisation designed specifically for birthworkers, helping you connect with your future self and the business you’re building.

In this episode, we explore:

Why visualisation already works in birth work

• How birthworkers use visualisation to support confidence, reduce fear and build trust in the body
• Why “the mind rehearses and the body follows” is something we already believe in
• The parallels between birth preparation and business growth

Why birthworkers often abandon visualisation in business

• The pull towards logic, strategy and constant action
• Waiting for proof before believing in ourselves
• Confidence being tied to bookings, income or external validation

Visualisation is a core, evidence-based tool in sports psychology – not something considered “woo” or vague.

We discuss:

• Mental rehearsal and neural pathways
• Why athletes visualise the process, not just the win
• How the brain responds to imagined experience as if it were real

Why this matters for birthworkers in business

• Visualising staying grounded when things don’t go to plan
• Preparing your nervous system for visibility, pricing, launches and quieter periods
• Moving from hoping things will work out to trusting that they will

Visualisation as identity work, not wishful thinking

Guided visualisation for birthworkers

The final part of this episode is a guided future visualisation created specifically for birthworkers building their businesses.

You’ll be invited to:

• Gently move one year into the future
• Connect with the version of you whose business feels aligned, sustainable and abundant
• Notice what matters most to you – values, impact, ease and fulfilment

This is a practice you can return to again and again:

• before launching a new service
• during periods of uncertainty
• when confidence dips
• or whenever you need clarity and grounding

Just like birth preparation, repetition matters.

Key takeaways

• Visualisation is not about pretending or bypassing reality
• It’s about training your nervous system and decision-making for where you’re going
• Birthworkers already know how powerful this tool is – this episode invites you to use it for yourself

If you enjoyed this episode, I’d love to hear what came up for you during the visualisation.
You can always pop into my DMs on Instagram and share what you’re dreaming into being 💛

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As we step into a new year, there’s often pressure to move straight into goal-setting, planning and “big energy” — without taking time to pause and reflect on what the year actually held.

In this solo episode, I’m sharing an honest reflection on my 2025: the moments that nourished me, one major low point that changed the pace of everything, the lessons I didn’t expect to learn, and the intentions I’m carrying forward into 2026.

This isn’t a strategy episode or a highlight reel. It’s a conversation about connection, ethical business, nervous system regulation, and what happens when we do too much doing and not enough being — something I know many birth and postpartum professionals will resonate with.

If you’re feeling tired, reflective, or unsure how you want to move into the new year, this episode offers space to slow down and take stock.

In This Episode, I Talk About:

• Why reflection matters more than rushing into goals
• What genuinely nourished me in 2025 — travel, creativity, community and strength
• Launching the Your Birth Biz membership and building meaningful visibility
• Navigating a major personal crisis when my husband was seriously injured
• What happens when business growth doesn’t match effort
• Hustle, nervous system dysregulation, and feeling disconnected from your work
• My honest reflections on over-relying on AI instead of my own thinking
• Why output doesn’t equal service — and visibility doesn’t equal connection
• Reconnecting with my body, mind and intuition
• My 2026 intention: connection is key
• Creating content as service, not obligation
• Why the podcast is becoming my primary way of supporting birth workers

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