About Nurturing Birth

Nurturing Birth was set-up to give expectant women and families a range of services to enhance their pregnancy, labour and postnatal period. Valerie Goedkoop and her husband Peter run Nurturing Birth together offering a range of courses to help women train and prepare to work as doulas. Nurturing Birth has now trained over 400 women all over the UK.

Valerie Goedkoop started being interested in childbirth a few years ago when she saw friends and relatives having babies in sometimes difficult or unfulfilling situations. Then she had her first two children, both positive but very different experiences.

After many years working for multi-national companies, Valerie left her managerial job in London to stop all the commuting and all the stresses of working for a blue chip company and decided to focus on her passion: pregnancy, labour and early years. For many reasons, becoming a doula seemed to be the perfect job for her. She has supported over 70 families and continues to do so.

Training: Valerie has trained in the UK as well as with DONA (Doulas of North America). She was also very fortunate to be able to be a volunteer doula in Pembury Hospital's labour ward, where she gained a lot of insight and experience. She now runs her own course for doulas throughout the country (she is a recognised trainer with Doula UK). She regularely attends workshops, conferences and study days on birth and breastfeeding.

Related skills: Valerie is a breastfeeding counsellor. She is skilled in homeopathy, aromatherapy and massage for childbirth. She used to teach antenatal yoga/active birth classes privately (one to one or small groups). She has trained with Francoise Freedman and is a certified teacher with Birthlight.

Check out her references.

In her spare time.... She has been a volunteer for Doula UK (the UK association for doulas). She was their chairperson for 2005. She is a lay representative on the Pembury and Maidstone hospitals Maternity Services Liaison Committee in Kent. She is also a governor at her children's school.

Our trainers:

Bushra Finch is an experienced doula, recognised with Doula UK. She has been featured in baby and pregnancy magazines, interviewed for several radio programmes as well as speaking on pregnancy and birth at several conferences. She is also a Maya Abdominal Massage practitioner, having trained with Rosita Arvigo in America and does personalised antenatal sessions with prospective parents. Bushra has also been involved in Doula UK at different levels for the past 3 years.

Kicki Hansard, SNHS (Professional Relaxation Therapy), is an experienced doula, recognised with Doula UK and a Certified Doula with BOND. She took part in the documentary about doulas called "Mum + One" which is currently being shown on the Discovery Home & Health Channel. She occasionally holds talks about doulas to student midwives and alternative health practitioners and is currently studying for a degree in Social Science.

Diane Walters is an experienced doula who has spent many years guiding women and their partners through pregnancy and birth into parenthood. She is recognized by Doula UK and is one of their team of assessors for trainee doulas. She has a reflexology practice where she specializes in maternity reflexology working with both men and women to help enhance their fertility as well as with women during their pregnancies. She is an EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) practitioner and has a certificate in counselling skills. She is the mother of two sons both born at home and sees birth as a sacred and intimate rite of passage that needs to be honoured and treasured.

Lulu Winfield is a birth doula, pregnancy reflexologist, hypnobirthing practitioner and yogabirth teacher. She has attended over 90 births in her role as a professional birth doula over the last few years and offers one to one courses on "preparing to be a birth partner" or birth preparation for couples. She has been a member of Doula UK since its early days, she is a recognized birth doula, mentor and assessor, working with trainees towards achieving Doula UK recognition status. She is also involved in the training co-ordination within Doula UK. Lulu teaches pre-natal yoga and childbirth education as a certified yogabirth teacher. She has been interviewed for various complementary health and pregnancy magazines and lives in West London with her two daughters.

Sue Saunders has been specialising in breastfeeding, lactation and human milk feeding since becoming an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant in 1989, and she has a background in breastfeeding counselling, midwifery and nursing. She qualifies her varied experience in both hospital and community settings, in Western Australia, West Africa and England as 'empowering and challenging'. She has been teaching breastfeeding and lactation to health care professionals and parents for the past 18 years both by facilitating courses and running breastfeeding consultations.

Lyn Scazafabo has been Women and Children's Health Nurse for 35 years and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant since 1994. She is the mother of 5 and grandmother of 7. her clinical experience includes working in both the acute care setting and the community. She founded the Breastfeeding resource Center at the University for Medicine and Dentistry in Camden, new Jersey (UMDNJ). After coming to England to research her family history in 2000 she fell in love with the Kent countryside and applied for a job as an infant Feeding Advisor with the NHS. Lyn has worked in this role in both East and West Kent. In addition to being a Registered Professional Nurse, Lactation Consultant and Childbirth Education Instructor Lyn has organized breastfeeding conferences for UMDNJ, developed and taught multidisciplinary courses on lactation management to health care professionals and offered breastfeeding classes to childbearing families both in the USA and in England.