I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Loving Arms Childbirth Services' birthing class! Jessica Cristen was our…read moreinstructor, and she was excellent! She's a certified midwife and lactation support specialist, with years of experience. Taking this class was the best decision I made for preparing for the birth of our baby girl. (even with the countless books I read and classes taken from Kaiser) My birth did NOT go at all as expected, but thanks to these classes I was super well prepared about all the possibilities that could occur during labor & delivery and helped my partner and I be on the same page (and have my partner know how he could best support me). Thus when things started to go different than what we prepared for in our birthing plan, we were really able to navigate the various options skillfully and have educated conversations with our care team. This made me feel way more secure when my health was declining during delivery. Even though I didn't have the birth I pictured for myself, I felt I had a wonderful birth story thanks to the classes from Loving Arms and our care support team. The class is very comfortable, super educational, and a good place to meet other couples about to have babies too. The instructors here really care about helping new families, and have years of experience and maturity. Again, best decision to take this class here @ Loving Arms. So glad I chose them!

We are so grateful we found Loving Arms and were able to take their childbirth prep class. I didn't…read morewant to have a doula and these courses helped me feel so knowledgeable about what to expect during childbirth and allowed my husband to know how best to support me. The lactation support and honest expectations about what to expect in the first few days with a newborn were invaluable. I ended up not having time to get an epidural and without this class, I think I would have panicked giving birth. However, armed with the knowledge from the courses, I was able to get through it and have a positive experience. Another plus is that we were able to bond with the other couples in the class and are still in touch now 9 months after our babies were born. Highly suggest!

We had the best experience with Maureen, one of the many talented doulas at Brilliant Births. We…read moreopted for a private Laboring together class, and it exceeded every expectation. Maureen guided us with so much knowledge, warmth and patience. She gave us practical tools, hands on techniques, and the confidence we needed as we prepare for our baby. We both walked out feeling way more prepared. If you're looking for someone who empowers, educates and genuinely cares, Maureen is incredible. We're so grateful!

My partner and I recently completed the Hypnobirthing three week course at Brilliant Births. We had…read morean absolutely incredible experience, for many reasons--The information we learned was invaluable, but also the instructors' teaching styles and depth of personal experience they offered was appreciated, comforting, and helpful. They clearly have a deep well of wisdom and experience-based expertise to share. We started our class with Keira and absolutely loved her--originally we were a bit bummed to know we would have a different instructor for our last day of the course. However, it turned out that Heidi was equitably wonderful and all things lovely-- instead of only one great instructor and guide, we ended up with two...which leads me to believe you'll be in skilled hands with anyone you interact with at BB. We will definitely be returning to take advantage of their other offerings!

I am a big fan of abdominal massage to heal all sorts of things both physical and emotional. It is…read moresuch a balancing and grounding experience and Francine is truly a healer in everything she does. Anytime you are feeling out-of-sorts Francine's treatments can put you back into your body and help lessen the stress of life by revitalizing and nourishing your soul.

I received more than a massage from Francine. I received a healing. I first met Francine over a…read moreyear ago when she was the assistant midwife for one of my best friends births. I had heard very good things about her and I knew that she was really known and respected in our community. This dear friend gifted me a massage with Francine following the birth of my own baby. I could not have been more excited and in need of a massage as you can imagine. Two and a half months of breast feeding, sleeping with, and carrying a new baby can really leave you with a sore back and arms. I felt very safe to express my emotions and concerns with Francine around what I was looking for in a massage. She normalized all of my disclosures and was very empathetic as she is a midwife and mother herself. I feel that Francine combined many techniques in her massage to help me realign sore areas in my body and I am certain that she also helped me call my spirit back from wherever it had gone during labor. I had many insights and left her home feeling refreshed emotionally and spiritually. I sincerely believe every mother deserves to treat herself to a massage with Francine. As a mental health therapist, I believe it is a necessity to experience the release and realignment that she can intuitively provide so well. I can't wait to treat my husband and mother to a massage with her as well. Thank you Francine.

Tsadae is a true body worker and healer. I saw her for multiple prenatal massages and she made such…read morea massive difference in my pregnancy. When I had placenta previa, I took advantage of her in home services and that was a game changer. She heals with not just her hands but also her mind and her amazing energy. I got another massage post partum at home and I cannot recommend that enough. Tsadae is an incredible human and the Bay is so lucky to have her!

Tsadae creates a healing environment for relaxation and support during pregnancy. She is an…read moreadvocate for your needs and birthing plans and really wants the best for you. This is my first time coming to see Tsadae. Her business is in a plaza with parking and she shares the space with an acupuncturist. Tsadae is there every Thursday and Friday and alternating Sundays. She is very responsive via text and is very understanding if you need to reschedule as we know sometimes things come up in our pregnancies that we don't anticipate! During my massage she was very professional and was able to give my body pain relief in my lower back. I also felt relaxed afterwards and felt like my body could move more freely. She helped released tension in my neck and shoulders as well since that's where I hold all my stress. She has pillows to help you feel comfortable on your side while she massages you and a wedge pillow for when you sit up for her to massage your neck and upper back. I definitely recommend her!

Gingi supported my prenatal and postpartum healing journey -- helping both myself and my 8 week old…read morebaby. I attended her womb movement class while pregnant and absolutely love it! She was also incredibly knowledgeable about breastfeeding and newborn care to reduce gassiness and offered the most amazing body massage afterwards! She validated my experiences as a new mother and created a very comfortable and safe space for me. I look forward to working with her again and highly recommend her services!

VBAC/HBAC success story!…read more As a second-time mom, I knew I wanted my birth experience to be drastically different than my first. I lived in New Jersey when we found out we were pregnant, so I started looking for midwives and OBs out there. I could not find someone who felt right for me. Some wouldn't listen/validate my concerns, others were asking over $10K out-of-pocket up front. As a result, I didn't feel comfortable having any prenatal care at all for the first 30 weeks. Fast forward, my husband got a job in the Bay Area. We were eager to find prenatal care that I felt right about upon moving here. I researched midwives and found Gingi's website. I reached out. We chatted on the phone so she could get an idea of my previous birth and I could ask her some initial questions, and we agreed to meet. I kept researching other midwives, but as soon as I met Gingi, I knew she was the one. The search was over and I had finally found a care provider that I felt confident with. This is so key for an expecting mother. Confidence and trust in your care provider is crucial to obtaining the birth you desire. I could not have had the natural home birth I desired if Gingi Allen wasn't my midwife. God led me to her. She was attentive, caring, and so wise. When my labs showed low iron, she recommended natural ways of increasing my levels. It worked. When we found out my son was breech at 36 weeks, she recommended ways we could flip him. He flipped naturally. My husband was working nights 80 hours a week, I was chasing my 18-month old toddler around, working from home full-time, and unpacking from the move. She reminded me to slow down, reflect, meditate, pause. She really looked at my health from a holistic perspective. Because of her recommendations, I have a fantastic acupuncturist, osteopath and massage therapist. The team she assembled for me was amazing. She was approaching maternity leave herself, and made sure that Grace Bender, her fellow CNM, was there to attend to me postpartum. She was amazing and also at my birth. Kai, her apprentice, was fantastic, and conducted my bone closing ceremony postpartum. During my birth, Gingi really encouraged me to listen to my body. I asked her questions, like "should I push now?" LOL and she would say, "What is your body telling you to do?" She was so patient with me. Listen, my birth, from prodromal labor in the beginning to pushing at the end, was literally a total of 48 hours. She never wavered. She never said, "Well, if x, y or z doesn't happen in this timeframe, then we'll have to.....blah blah blah" That's usually what a woman hears before their care provider deviates from the birth plan. That never happened with Gingi. I loved that she didn't tell me how dilated I was. That was something triggering for me, since I stalled at 9 cm with my first son before I had the C-section. That's not even something I asked Gingi to refrain from doing. She just KNEW that dilating to 10cm was something I was concerned wouldn't happen, so she didn't allow me to worry about it during birth. I'm telling you, this woman's instincts are SUPERB. Trust me when I say, Gingi is the midwife YOU WANT AND NEED. I could not have birthed my beautiful 9lb, 11 oz son at home , after a previous C-section, if I didn't have Gingi. A comment my last midwife made (with my first son), was that my son was "big" which is why I stalled. He was 8 lbs, 12 oz. So literally my second son was almost a FULL POUND LARGER, and I had him at home, COMPLETELY NATURAL. I COULD NOT HAVE DONE THAT WITHOUT GINGI! She is amazing. Just hire her already. You'll be thrilled you did. I was only under her care from weeks 30-40 and still had the most amazing prenatal care experience. My postpartum care, first with her and then, Grace, was crucial to my recovery. I had PPD the first time, but not this time! Gingi Allen will do everything she can to ensure all women in her care have an amazing prenatal care and birth experience. As you can tell, I highly recommend.

This training was very healing & enlightening. I feel…read moreconfident & prepared to offer my services to a family in need. Training was hands on & very personal. Two thumbs up!

I truly appreciated the consistent focus on social equity, inclusivity, empowerment, support, and…read moresensitivity throughout the Cornerstone Doula Training course. The content was well organized, well delivered, and easily accessed. I feel honored to have received my Doula training from Cornerstone. They embody caring, support, and empowerment for all birthing people and their communities. Thank you for educating and supporting me along my journey.

It's hard to put into words the gratitude my partner and I feel for the Sisters Doula team --…read moreAllison, Renata, and Andrea are truly incredible. Before meeting them, we thought of birth as something to get through. They helped us shift our thinking and see it as something to be experienced. The birth of our son became a deeply intimate, connected, and transformative experience. Even weeks later, we still find ourselves in awe, and we're certain it wouldn't have been the same without the Sisters team. They prepared us for labor in a way that felt both meaningful and empowering. We feel so grateful that we began our journey into parenthood in such a beautiful way with their support. From our initial at-home meeting with Allison, we immediately felt at ease. Her calm presence and deep wisdom around birth were grounding from the start. Renata's classes were interactive and experiential, helping us feel informed, capable, and prepared. When labor began, the Sisters team was an invaluable support. Andrea checked in consistently by text during the early phase, and when we were ready, Renata joined us on the phone--calming us and helping us with decision-making. Allison then met us at home and helped guide us in timing our transition to the hospital. Throughout labor, she was a steady, reassuring presence--gently guiding me through different positions, offering encouragement, and helping me stay grounded. The postpartum visits with Allison have been meaningful in ways we hadn't anticipated. Having the space to revisit and process the birth experience with her felt emotional and meaningful. She has been incredibly helpful in normalizing the challenges of early parenthood while also sharing in and celebrating the joys.

I found sister doulas when looking for a doula who worked with Kaiser (my insurance). We did an…read moreinitial meet and greet type call where they introduced themselves, their services and answered our questions. They ended the meeting saying they recommend we meet with several doulas before making a decision. As soon as the call ended my husband and I looked at a each and knew our search was over; we signed paperwork that week. Between the prenatal home visits to the group educational classes we felt like we had the support we needed going into labor. The wealth of knowledge and experience between them was incredible. When contractions got serious and we reached out it was sister doulas calm voices on the phone that helped us slow down and make decisions. Their existing relationship with the hospital staff was reassuring. They ensured I/we felt supported, cared and advocated for the entire 22 hour labor. The post partum visits were helpful in a way that I hadn't expected. After the initial new baby excitement when family leaves and lack of sleep kicks in it was so wonderful to have sister doulas reach out and come to our home to check in on us. Without hesitation I would recommend Sister Doulas to any expecting family.

My husband and I have been to 3 lactation consultants provided by the hospital before seeing molly…read more They did not work for me. I thought the amount of pain that I was experiencing while breastfeeding was somewhat a given and that I just needed to get through the first couple months. I went from using S&S when I didn't have enough milk my first week, to getting my baby's tongue tie snipped, to nipple shield, to getting clogged ducts, to removing the nipple shield and getting blood blisters and peeling of the nipple skin. Breastfeeding became something I dreaded everyday. When my husband would ask If i wanted to breastfeed, I kept postponing hoping that my nipples would have enough time to heal. A friend of mine recommended seeing Molly. Even though insurance didn't cover it, I wanted to give it one last chance before deciding to exclusively pump. With Molly, I had a breakthrough. It's only been 2 days since I've seen her and my son is able to latch deeply several times without giving me pain. She was able to point out how to help him latch deeply and also provide tips on how we can bottle feed in a way that would help transition him back to the boob. We started practicing this right away. The way she communicated was unlike other lactation consultants that I've seen. She was quite friendly, understanding, and encouraging. She took the pressure off to get breastfeeding down- unlike like my third consultant who would say it's "breastfeeding boot camp". She encouraged me to try and practice at least once a day. It didn't feel as overwhelming and it took a huge burden off my shoulders. I highly recommend seeing Molly if you're struggling with your breastfeeding journey! Thank you Molly!

We had an extremely rough start with breastfeeding (our baby had a tongue tie, trouble latching,…read moretrouble opening her mouth wide enough, I was exclusively pumping, I got mastitis multiple times, it developed into abscesses, etc.). Molly's pragmitism-meets-optimism helped us make it through this extremely trying time. Her technical expertise is beyond compare, but what makes her care extra valuable is her unwavering understanding of what it takes to support people who are struggling. I think I told her this at some point, and it probably sounded like a sleep-deprived thing to say, but she is like a protectress from Arthurian times, defending the magic of breastfeeding for as many mamas and babies as possible.

It's 8pm on a Saturday night and I am relaxing on my couch having a glass of wine. My little man…read morehas been sleeping in his crib since he fell asleep there, ON HIS OWN, SEVEN minutes after we put him down - without a peep. You read that right. Since I have such ample time, this review will be a long one. I gave you fair warning. I'm not so rigid to think or expect that every night will unfold like tonight. There will be teeth! walking! talking! more regressions to come. However, a month after starting this process, it has become a reasonable reality for me to expect that on more days/nights rather than not (meaning NAPS and bedtime), he will go to sleep. It is a work in progress, but Dahlia guided us through it with the confidence and clarify we ourselves needed to provide to our son for the process to work. The backstory: At 11 weeks old, my son morphed from our lovely sleeping newborn waking twice a night to waking EVERY HOUR, needing to be soothed back to sleep...while sleeping in our bed. As the weeks dragged on, it became clear he was not going to outgrow this hiccup in an amount of time that would preserve my sanity (or marriage lol), and things were snowballing from bad to dreadful (more on that below). He eventually settled on a pattern of waking 4-7 times per night; however, he started having negative sleep associations to most every soothing trick in the book. I won't waste time listing such strategies or the gimmicks I bought on Amazon. Well-meaning folks always shared their soothing strategies. Well, if you can envision it, we tried it. Don't start to tell me about white noise and black out shades. Eventually, NOTHING WORKED except the boob. So sleep - meaning all naps and bedtime plus the night wake ups - became an hour long battle with raging, screaming, kicking, tears. All of which did not guarantee an outcome of sleep in the end! This was a vicious cycle on repeat at least 4 times daily which went on for almost two months (give or take some days where baby was so exhausted he slept well for a night or two). On top of this, I had impending abdominal and oral surgeries. Just icing on the cake. We knew we had to sleep train. After pouring through blogs and books about the various sleep training techniques and studies, I still had reservations (and extreme anxiety subjecting my baby to this), and needed someone to lead me through its ups and downs. Alright I'll be honest - sleep training is mostly down. It is painful. Gutwrenchingly PTSD painful if your baby is anything like mine. Enter Dahlia. She is honest, positive, supportive, respectful, and above all, will use her knowledge to SEE YOU THROUGH IT. She makes herself available and genuinely wants to help you. I cannot thank her enough and I definitely promise you will not get that from a blog. So dread. I used to DREAD naps and bedtime. The clock would hit 5:30pm and my heart would sink a little. My soul would wail a sad song. Now, I think about the time I can spend writing long reviews and blogging while he's sleeping. And the biggest plus? The little man wakes up RELAXED and RESTED and happy to see me. THANK YOU DAHLIA!

Dahlia is the BEST! We hired her for 3 months of postpartum work, which is no small task with…read moretwins! She was so caring, nurturing, and gentle with our babies, her experience was only outweighed by her sweetness and profound gift for "twinning". I feel so lucky to have had her work with us, she taught us (first-time parents) so much, from swaddling to bathing to infant massage! Every morning when Dahila arrived it was a ray of sunshine and positive energy, my babies responded so well to her songs, her feeding techniques, and her cuddles. We were so sad to say goodbye to her when it was time, and are almost jealous of the next family that gets to work with her! :) :)

This review is long overdue. I intended to write something soon after giving birth, and that was…read moreover 9 years ago! I was searching for an unrelated email this morning and came across our message. I remember Katherine being so great with us. From our first meeting I knew she was calm, personable, and genuinely kind. My partner and I were under a lot of stress at the time, and her energy was perfect. Not overbearing or intrusive. I went into labor on our daughter's due date and Katherine came right away. I had a natural birth, and I remember her checking in and making sure I was OK before she offered comforting touch during labor. It turned out I didn't want to be touched much, and she respected that, offering her support in other ways. She helped me push through the most painful parts of labor with breathing. I hope she knows how much I appreciated her presence.

Kathryn is awesome!!! She took me on last minute and was an amazing doula. I was past due and in…read morepain so she came over to show me techniques to help the pain. Shortly after she left my water broke and she came right back to help me. She kept me calm as possible and helped me focus. She also helped keep my husband calm I highly recommend her