About Me

Supporting families through pregnancy, brith, feeding and early parenthood is not something I ever take lightly. Over the last decade, I’ve dedicated myself to learning, questioning, training and continually developing my practice so that the families I teach or support receive honest, compassionate and evidence based informed care.

My journey began as a breastfeeding peer supporter when my youngest was 6 months after my own major struggles with breastfeeding and realising again parents needed so much more, support was poor, so needed. I then qualified as a Hypnobirthing Teacher. Since then I’ve continues to expand my knowledge and experience, training as a Childbirth Educator, Birth Doula, Breastfeeding Counsellor, Mindful Breastfeeding Practitioner and Infant Massage Teacher.

I’ve trained with respected and recognised organisations including Childbirth International, Developing Doulas, The Mindful Breastfeeding School, The HypnoBirthing Institute and Blossom & Berry. Qualifications are only part of the picture… some of my greatest learning has come from walking alongside hundreds of families through pregnancy, birth and early parenthood. 

I’ve supported hospital births, home births, caesarean births, breech births, free births and heartbreakingly families who have gone through loss. Every birth, every family has reinforced something I deeply believe in, there’s no set way to do things and no journey is linear. Every single family deserves personalised care, that’s respectful and centred around them.

My work extends beyond The Lemon Tree. I’m an ambassador for Surrey and Sussex Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership (MNVP), where I’m passionate about ensuring women’s voices are heard, to help shape, to improve local maternity services across Surrey and Sussex. I work closely with East Surrey’s home birth team, local independent midwives and other skilled, local professionals. These close connections allow me support families beyond the times where I can’t, if they need signposting or additional support/care. 

I’ve also been lucky to work with The Mindful Breastfeeding School delivering sessions to their students and I also regularly deliver educational workshops to midwifery students at both Kingston and St Georges’s Universities. 

Birth and infant feeding are constantly evolving. New research is always emerging, practice changes and understanding continues to grow. To be good in my roles I have to keep growing too. I don’t believe anyone can ever know it all and I want you to know that if there’s a time I don’t have an answer I will help you find it. 

When you choose to invest and work with me, you’re not just booking a course or service. You’re working with someone who has spent more than a decade immersed in birth, infant feeding and supporting families through a huge variation of journeys. I remain just as curious, committed and passionate as the day I started, if not more.

Honestly? I was scared, maybe you are too?

Like so many expectant parents, you pee on a stick, it’s super exciting, you get though the first trimester, all fun and games choosing prams and nursery furniture, then boom! Oh we don’t have much money left for birth prep and how the fuck is a whole human going to come out my vagina?

I’d seen one born every minute (don’t watch this crap), I’d heard friends and families trauma stories and just assumed it was something I had to get through, if we came out alive, healthy and my vag was in tact it was all good. I didn’t want to spend my pregnancy hoping for the best, I wanted to actually know what would happen, why and what to do, someone give me some guidance here. Curiosity got the better of me when it came to exploring Hypnobirthing. It completely changed how I viewed birth right from the first session.

It wasn’t about believing birth wouldn’t hurt, that it would be easy, it was understanding hormones, physiology, understanding the nervous system and all of the things that could influence birth…. wow! My perspective really shifted. Birth wasn’t happening TO me it was happening THROUGH me, it WAS me!

Of course understanding doesn’t happen by accident, like anything worth doing in life, preparing takes time, which is why I say you can NEVER start too early. I did the work, so did Rick. We worked on mindset, had MANY conversations, delved deep into conditioning, fears and feelings. I practiced the tools I was given religiously and we worked as a team. That experience shaped my own births but also how I support families today. 

I KNOW you can go from frightened or traumatised to calm and confident, I’ve seen it happen over and over I KNOW you can do that! 

This is probably the question that has shaped my entire courier. Over the last decade I’ve noticed the same pattern time and time again. Not that parents don’t care, that they don’t want to prepare but that they are expected to make huge decisions without being given the time, context or information they need and are coerced.

Many parents arrive at birth without fully understanding the system, how birth actually works, what’s needed and what will disrupt it. They’re offered choices if they are lucky but most of the time told what will happen to them or what they HAVE to do. They don’t always realise recommendations are just ‘recommendations’ not something they have to do. They also don’t know that guidelines are just a ‘guide’, only around 10% on average are based on decent evidence and half of them aren’t worth the paper they are written on! So many parents walk away from birth saying ‘I didn’t know that’ or ‘it wasn’t the birth I wanted’ facing trauma or unanswered questions. Most people do popular group courses to make friends but the education and support is seriously shoddy. These companies work alongside the NHS, lead you to the fire and some of the courses aren’t even written by skilled/qualified birth professionals!

This is where I come in…. I’m not here to tell you what choices to make, I’m here to help you understand your options, to explain the evidence, to have those conversations, to question. I’m here to help you find your confidence and power to navigate and do things your way. This is one of the reasons I work with so many 2nd and 3rd time parents. They quickly realise the group course that made them friends didn’t make their birth!

Nobody has your body, your baby, your life, your experience or your thoughts. Nobody can tell you what you should or shouldn’t be doing, nobody can tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. If you want to colour outside the lines I’m here for it! Birth, feeding, motherhood, they are separate entities, they are ONE!

When you look back on this transformative phase, I want you to think ‘how do I want to feel when I reflect back on my birth?’. What does that look like? I’m here to help you create that. 

I offer free phone 20 minute phone call so you can ask me any questions, with no obligation to book. Alternatively you can drop me a message or an email any time at all. I’m more than happy to talk through all things birth & breastfeeding with you. It’s really important to find an educator & doula that you feel comfortable with. I’m a chilled, open, honest, straight talking person but I also have a fire in my soul when needed to support my clients