I truly cannot say enough wonderful things about Meleah and the role she played in helping me have…read moresuch a positive, empowering birth experience. After a traumatic first birth, I approached my second pregnancy with a lot of anxiety and a desire for a different experience. From the very beginning, she met me with compassion and unwavering support. She took the time to understand my previous experience and what mattered most to me. She helped me rebuild trust in myself and my body and gave me the confidence to approach birth feeling informed and empowered. Throughout my pregnancy, she was an incredible source of reassurance and guidance. She helped me navigate difficult decisions and the emotional ups and downs that came with preparing for another birth. During labor, she was nothing short of extraordinary. She was my biggest advocate, a constant source of calm and encouragement, and someone I could lean on completely during some of the most physically and emotionally intense moments of my life. She knew when to offer reassurance, when to help me find my strength, and when to advocate for what I needed. Her presence made me feel safe and genuinely cared for. What makes her so special is that her care extends far beyond the delivery room. She continued to check in on me postpartum, making sure I felt supported not just physically but emotionally as I processed my experience and adjusted to life with a newborn. I went into this pregnancy carrying a lot of fear and unresolved feelings from my first birth, and I came out of it with a renewed sense of confidence and peace. She played an enormous role in that transformation.

We could not have had the birth experience we had without Meleah! She was absolutely invaluable - I…read moredon't know what we would have done without her. She is incredibly knowledgeable, kind and really helped me listen to my instincts and guide me through birth. My husband and I can't recommend her enough!

I reached out to a few doulas and felt an immediate connection with Alexis. From the first moment…read morewe spoke, she was so generous with her time and wisdom, as well as personal anecdotes to help me get a better sense of the types of scenarios we should be thinking through. She also helped me navigate the world of prenatal care - sharing the names of a wonderful birth class, prenatal masseuse and chiropractor that kept me in decent shape up until my birth. During labor, Alexis was a perfect partner to my husband and me. My labor was long, and having Alexis there with us meant that I always had a rested partner to help me through labor. She also helped us navigate the many decisions that inevitably arise during birth, and I can honestly say that while it didn't go according to "plan," it was one of the most beautiful moments of my life and I give Alexis so much credit for that. She's incredibly passionate about what she does and even after birth, was an incredible resource and partner to us in those early, uncertain weeks. We're lucky to have her in the Bay Area!

This is a long over due review. Alexis was my doula for the birth of my second son (7/24/14). My…read morehusband and I couldn't have done it without her. I contacted Alexis late into my pregnancy because I really wanted my second birth to be without an epidural. I didn't have the best experience with my first birth and I really wanted this time to be different. Alexis reassured me that this was a different birth and that my body was meant for this. From the moment I spoke to her I knew she was meant to be a doula. She is super calm and sweet and you can tell she loves what she does. We met shortly there after and I didn't have to interview anyone else (although I spoke to many over the phone). I wasn't too happy with my doctor at the time and Alexis not only knew who he was but helped me research other doctors and suggested many others to me.. She always responded to all of my silly questions and concerns and helped me come up with a birth plan. The day I went into labor I called Alexis and she gave me the option to come over or let me keep laboring on my own at home and meet me later. I felt calm and confident so I stayed in the tub and labored from home and stayed in touch with her. She could tell just by talking to me if I was close or not. When the time came I called Alexis and we met at the hospital. I can honestly say that thanks to Alexis I was able to have an un-medicated birth, my husband said it was the best money we have ever spent (and he was hesitant about getting a doula). Alexis helped me through the contractions and helped me remain calm. She even stayed long after to help in any way that she could. The only regret I have is that I didn't take any pictures with her that day.

I've been seeing Christina for over a year. Initially I wanted to experience craniosacral therapy…read more Christina starts each session with your intention. Mine was a desire to feel a sense of safety in my body. That was and has been amazing, to be able to feel safe from within. With her support I was able to start to reconnect with my body, which I didn't even realize was numb/disconnected! Due to her additional pre and perinatal training I've also been able to discover and heal early wounds that my body had memory of, but that my mind and talk therapy had not been able to access. Christina has been vital in my healing from childhood developmental trauma in a safe way without retraumatizing. She's role modeled and helped me learn to have compassion and love for myself, and to grow my emotional capacity and tolerance. When I bump into difficult memories or emotions, Christina is there to walk me through it to welcome them in compassionate way. Christina's calming presence helps me to feel safe and supported, which is critical for healing. She is a special soul and a true healer.

We are so grateful to have worked with Christina. When we got pregnant with our first child, we…read moreknew we wanted a natural, peaceful birth and Christina helped support ​our vision​ every step of the way. In the prenatal visits, she helped​ us discover our ideal birth​ scenario and​​ ​provided us with resources (visualization​s​, books, audio recordings) to help support our preferences. She helped ​prepare us for ​the many decisions​ of pregnancy, labor & delivery and newborn care, so we could make the best choices for our family. When our son's birth arrived, Christina was amazing. She was right there from my initial contractions to post-birth. She knew just how and when to jump in, but also when to give both me and my husband our space. Christina reminded my husband and I focus on one another and the incredible event happening to us. She is very familiar with Marin General ​which​ helped us navigate our admission and get comfortable in the hospital space. ​She gave good suggestions on different positions to minimize my pain while also ensuring my labor progressed. With her help, we had a beautiful, all natural birth. ​Afterward, Christina followed up with us and came to visit our new baby multiple times. She even gave our baby a cranial sacral treatment and came back to give me a much needed postpartum massage. I can't say enough good things about Christina. She is incredibly conscientious and caring. She is a wonderful, calming doula and a talented masseuse. I highly recommend her.

Amber has a beautiful, gentle and calm presence and her time with us after the birth of our…read moredaughter was so very valuable. She came and supported us during my postpartum time, cooking delicious, nutritious meals. Making warm spiced chai, special teas and sweets for lactation. Her expert knowledge around birth, postpartum and hormone balancing is excellent. Combined with her gentle touch through abayanga massage, which was so very restorative for me, especially after I had quite significant blood loss during my birth. I felt totally held and nourished and couldn't recommend her highly enough for this incredibly tender time, she is a really special person. Thank you again Amber! X

My husband and I had a wonderful experience working with Alana Corrin through Healthy Mamas,…read moreHealthy Babies. First, learning about the services and speaking with Amber was great. She is highly organized and very responsive. I also loved the online mom support groups with different topics covered each week - these were so helpful! For the doula services, Alana was wonderful. She is very laid back and easy to talk to while also being super knowledgable and attentive. I wasn't sure if I was going to try to have a natural birth or get an epidural and I felt like Alana was ready to support me no matter what option I wound up choosing. Also, my husband tends to be very anxious around any medical or hospital setting so we weren't sure if he would be able to be with me for all of labor and delivery. Our meeting before birth was great because Alana was able to listen to his concerns and talk him through what L&D would be like so he wouldn't be so nervous. We only wound up being able to have one pre-birth meeting because my baby decided to show up 6.5 weeks early! Thankfully, Alana was able to meet us at the hospital within an hour of my husband calling her (around 3am??). My labor proceeded very quickly and we were both overwhelmed because we had not anticipated having our baby that early. Alana remained a calm and consistent presence throughout my labor and for a while after delivery after they took my baby to the NICU. She was also able to ask the nurses and doctors questions we had completely forgotten to ask and kept us up to date with everything that was happening. My husband wound up being able to stay for most of L&D and I think a lot of that has to do with Alana being there - we both felt fully supported the entire time. We had three post-partum sessions with Alana and they were also incredibly helpful. I would definitely recommend her to others and would love to work with her again if we wind up having another baby (hopefully closer to my due date next time, hehe)!

Juliana helped make our birth incredible…read more My husband and I knew Juliana was the right doula for us when we first met with her. She was such a calming presence from the first minute. Juliana was there for me in the last trimester as I had high blood pressure and was puffy all over. She suggested herbs and diet changes to get me through the last days of pregnancy. When my doctor wanted to induce, Juliana was available by phone whenever I needed her. She helped us talk through the difficult decision to induce and to request a more mild induction drug from the doctor. My labor was so easy, really! Juliana and my husband laughed because between every contraction at the end, I was cheering them on and saying they were doing a great job. My whole birthing experience was so wonderful that I would have done it again the next day. My doctor told me that I shouldn't spread the word about this because my birth was so much easier than the average woman's. I highly recommend Juliana to guide you through your pregnancy and birth process.

Juliana was my birth doula and I had the best experience. As soon as I met her, I could tell how…read moreexperienced and knowledgeable she is! She helped us prepare for a natural birth, which was my preference, but also understand the unpredictable things that could happen during labor. She helped us create the birth plan, she shared resources of what to pack, how to cope with pain and more. She kept in touch with us as soon as I started to labor at home, checking in often with my husband. At the hospital, her presence was crucial in ensuring things continued going smoothly. When labor stalled during the pushing phase, she noticed that I hadn't peed in a while and suggested that emptying my bladder would be helpful. She then suggested moving to happy baby position. Despite being reluctant of laboring on my back, I trusted her and guess what? My baby's head started to crown! We welcomed our daughter into the world as peacefully as possible. I'm very grateful for all her support, I wouldn't have been able to have the birth experience I had without her! After our baby girl was born, she also did a home visit to check on us, discuss the birth story and teach us some baby massages.

Brilliant Births matched me with an amazing night doula, Mirai! I so appreciate that they provide…read morethis helpful matching service. They quickly processed my application and sent me profiles of several doulas to interview, all of whom were excellent. I was especially grateful that they provided the referrals so quickly, as we were in desperate need of some help at night with our first daughter.

I reached out to Brilliant Births to find a birth doula. They offer a matching service and…read moreconnected me to 3 doulas who work independently (not employees of BB). We were really fortunate to find our birth doula (who we love!), but the other 2 candidates were not very impressive. The first doula missed our appointment with no follow-up communication. We were initially confused and thought she was the coordinator for BB, because she only communicated by text. The actual meeting was just by telephone so there was no face-to-face interaction, which felt strange. We could've easily FaceTimed or Zoomed. So communication and reliability were not great. The second doula abruptly canceled our half-hour appointment when we were 10 minutes late for a 30-minute appointment due to my husband wrapping up a Zoom meeting. During our appointment time, she was responding to my emails (in which I apologized for being late), but insisted she could no longer meet with us. I thought this was a really bad sign about what she would be like to work with - labor and delivery is rarely precisely timed and some flexibility is needed. In addition, her email said that she lives in Portola Valley, but we live Berkeley (also where Brilliant Births is located). This also struck me as strange, because it would take 1.5 hours for her to arrive to meet us at the hospital, which is not ideal.

After meeting Sasha Hood it was clear she was who we needed to help us through the journey of…read moregiving birth to our first child. We did many interviews to find the right birth doula and we really felt we hit the lotto hiring her. Sasha was doing her midwife training at the time of my pregnancy and had so much experience helping women give birth. She was incredibly patient in explaining hospital procedures and even though you could tell the hospital tries to hurry decision making along with Sasha's guidance we never felt rushed. At the end of our birth journey we felt empowered and more confident as Sasha has such a wealth of knowledge she eagerly shared with us from the time we hired her when I was 20 weeks pregnant to after our daughters birth. Sasha from the moment we hired her was so responsive and explained our choices so clearly and really took the time to help us understand all the information and options available as there is so much and it gets really confusing. I never once felt I wasn't in the best hands and felt Sasha was the best person for the job. She was very hands on and creative with ideas to help ease the pain from 22 hours of back labor. Sasha was able to find the balance of being involved while giving space to my husband and myself to navigate as well. We are so incredibly appreciative to have had Sasha our birth doula to help welcome our daughter into this world and would recommend her to anyone!

Sasha attended the birth of my son as a student midwife through the birth center, Sage Femme. She…read morewas truly amazing in helping me through the stages of my labor and was supportive and non-judgmental. I had an amazing labor and birth that ended with a postpartum hemorrhage. I was incredibly impressed with how calm and grounded she was through the whole thing. She is talented and meant to do this work. She will make a great Midwife one day for sure, however, anyway you could have Sasha attend your birth would make you a secure laboring lady!

I was lucky to have a pretty easy pregnancy and delivery, but because my husband could not take…read moretime off and my mom could only stay for a week after the birth of our baby, I knew I needed some extra help. Regula came recommended from a friend, and with her background in the medical field and lactation support I knew she had the "resume" background I was looking for. I kept thinking that I didn't need someone *so* qualified (given things being so "textbook" for me), however she had a significant role in three important ways: 1) guiding me through my baby not gaining weight, and being able to keep breastfeeding; 2) helping me identify that my baby had a milk protein allergy, and 3) supporting me in the most nonjudgemental way and making sure I got some sleep 1- baby weight gain: my daughter lost some weight (common) but was not gaining it back as quickly as the pediatricians wanted - I doing what I thought I was supposed to, but it wasn't working, I felt like a failure (complete breakdown in the pediatrician's office), and was about to start using formula (which is TOTALLY OK, and honestly I was just so exhausted and I hated the feeling of working so hard without my baby gaining) -- because of her background she was able to see that I wasn't keeping my child at a single breast for long enough at a time (my baby often fell asleep nursing) which meant she wasn't getting enough hind milk (the fatty part) - it wasn't so out of balance that there were other warning signs, so I don't think the pediatrician realized that was happening. As soon as I followed Regula's direction, my baby gained ounces each day and had a double chin within a couple of weeks with all of her weight gain. 2- identifying protein allergy: my baby had a good amount of gas and it caused a good amount of crying (poor thing was so uncomfortable) - she repeatedly told me that I should try to eliminate dairy and see how that went, but I kept eating yogurt, cheese, cookies made with butter... by the second month we had stronger, more obvious signs that led us back to the pediatrician, and after consulting with a pediatric GI specialist I finally followed the advice I had in the beginning - she had a dairy protein (whey/casein) allergy. After me eliminating from my diet after a few days baby no longer cried at night, no spit up, no blow outs, minimal gas... Regula knew what to advise me to eat and avoid, and helped me consider the dairy allergy as a possibility even before the doctor. 3- support and sleep: I knew that with someone as experienced as Regula I could hand over my new baby (and I was a major germ freak and totally not trusting of others to take my baby... at first) and get some sleep - I would not have slept much at all had she not been able to easily take my baby, and keep her happy and entertained, and even would help get her to sleep as well! Beyond that, as other reviewers have mentioned, she has no agenda - she pushes no philosophy, and she talked me through all kinds of new mom things with a great ear and lots of kindness and compassion. My mom was helpful, but she was not able to stay with me for long, and it was so nice to have someone (who also helped fix me snacks, tidied the kitchen, helped with the baby's laundry) to be with me when my mom couldn't. Additionally, had I really listened to her about the sleep feeding my baby might now (at 13 months) be a better sleeper -- please follow ALL of her advice!!! it'll help in the long run! Even if you think you have all your ducks in a row and have a great support network, it was a great decision to have Regula as an expert in our corner.

As we got closer to our due date and reality was sinking in that we were truly going to have a baby…read more(!) my husband and I talked about the idea of having a post-partum doula. We just wanted the peace of mind, especially because we did not have any family around and wanted to make sure we had some support if things were not going well. We found Regula on Yelp and then also found out that she was the post-partum doula for my husband's coworker who LOVED Regula. We engaged Regula to come a 3-4 days a week for the first 6 weeks after having our little one. We were so glad we made the decision to employ Regula. The first 6 weeks are so hard to navigate. Is he eating enough? Is he still hungry, is he sleepy, is it normal he is only sleeping for 20 minutes, should I try and keep him up, should I let him cry a little? So many doubts and questions. It was so wonderful to have Regula around to give that reassurance and confidence. Our son was healthy and happy, we still faced usual challenges. Our son lost a little more weight than the doctors want to see (~12%) so that was a bit stressful. As was my husband getting the flu when Oliver was 2 weeks old. Regula was our rock, personal lactation consultant, and support system. She let us know what was normal and what wasn't, and she put as at so much ease being there for us. She made such a difference to both me and my husband. Regula is also just such a lovely person, with such a calm and warm presence and was so nice to have some socialization during that time without being stressed about having a little one around because that is what she was there for. I personally would recommend everyone use a post-partum Doula (and Regula specifically!) if you've nervous about bringing your newborn home. She made such a big impact on us. She is flexible, will cater to what you need and help any way you best see fit.

I am so incredibly happy that Becca was our doula for our hospital birth. This was my first baby,…read moreand I knew that all I wanted was for the baby to be healthy and to avoid an emergency C-section if I could. We met with Becca and knew right away that she was the perfect person to help us in preparing for and giving birth. She immediately set us at ease by assuring us that the hospital we chose had an excellent Labor and Delivery team. She was 100% right about that, and everything else. She helped me trust myself and my body. I never thought I would have such an amazing and thoroughly happy birth experience. Becca really cares. It meant a lot to us that she also visited us after the birth to check in and provide some very welcome support. If we have another baby, we will definitely work with Becca, again!

I could not imagine my first birth without Becca! From the very first phone call, I felt an instant…read moreconnection with her--she's such a kind, caring soul and a true expert in her field. One of the things that impressed me most was how seamlessly she read the dynamic between me and my husband. She always knew when to step in with support and when to step back and give us space. That balance was invaluable during such an emotional, vulnerable time. When my birth plan didn't go the way I had envisioned, Becca's expert advice and calm presence gave me so much security in the decisions I had to make. She helped me feel grounded, informed, and confident every step of the way and encouraged me to listen to my instinct and body. Another aspect of her support that you simply can't put a price on is how connected she is at Kaiser. She knew nearly every midwife and nurse, and because of her strong relationships there, I felt reassured that the care I was receiving was exactly what I needed. Her presence gave me an extra layer of trust in the whole process. Becca communicated beautifully, supported us with such compassion, and helped make my first birth experience one that I will cherish forever. I can't recommend her enough--if you're considering a doula, Becca is truly one of a kind! Thank you so much Becca!

My husband I are so grateful we found Marilou at fairly last min notice, she brought such a…read morewonderful, calming energy to our house to help with our 6 week old. Our daughter immediately took to Lu, as did our toddler, who loved to stop in to the nursery and say hi. Marilou helped us figure out bath time, feeding, and tummy issues, all with a super gentle approach that put both me and the baby at ease. While she was here I was able to truly rest, a rarity in those early PP weeks. I would highly recommend Marilou to anyone!! I teared up when she left!

My wife and I had Jordan from Doulas by the Bay help care for our newborn overnight from 11 p.m. to…read more7 a.m., and she quickly earned our trust. Jordan is young, eager, and incredibly attentive. Throughout every overnight shift, she remained awake and alert, always ready when our daughter needed her. Most importantly, she cared for our baby with the same patience and gentleness we would ourselves, which gave us tremendous peace of mind as new parents. Her reliability was equally impressive. She was consistently punctual, arriving between 10:58 and 11:00 p.m., and was always respectful and ready to help. Trusting someone with your newborn is no small thing. Jordan made that trust easy. I would confidently recommend both Jordan and Doulas by the Bay to my closest friends and family, and we'd happily welcome her back into our home. Thank you, Jordan, for taking such wonderful care of our little girl!