Birth & Postpartum Doula Support

There is a difference between being cared for clinically and being accompanied. Both matter. A doula is the second one.

Vanessa Salerno has attended more than two hundred births and spent over twenty years in the medical industry, including fertility and IVF. She sits with you through late pregnancy, stays with you in labour, and comes back afterwards when the house has gone quiet and everyone else has left.

No clinical care. No decisions made for you. Steady, continuous presence.

What a doula does

A doula provides continuous, non-clinical support through late pregnancy, labour and the weeks that follow. The role is old and fairly simple: someone experienced stays with you, so that you are never the least-informed and most frightened person in the room.

In practice that looks like:

• Antenatal sessions to talk through your hopes, your fears and your birth preferences
• Explaining what your care team is likely to suggest, and what questions to ask
• Comfort measures in labour: positioning, movement, counter-pressure, heat, breathing, the bath, the quiet word at the right moment
• Holding the environment: lights, noise, who is in the room, when to speak and when not to
• Supporting your partner so they can be present with you rather than trying to be your coach
• Advocacy, in the sense of making sure your voice is heard and your questions get answered
• Postpartum visits for feeding, settling, recovery and the emotional weather of early parenthood

What a doula does not do

This part matters as much as the first.

A doula provides no clinical care. Vanessa does not perform examinations, monitor your baby, give medical advice or interpret results. She does not make decisions on your behalf, and she will not speak over you or over your care team. She does not replace your obstetrician or midwife. She works alongside them, and good doula support makes that relationship easier, not more complicated.

If something clinical needs deciding, the conversation is between you and your medical team. What a doula can do is slow the moment down, help you ask what your options are, and make sure you understand the answer before you agree to anything.

How the support is shaped

Most people begin somewhere in the second or early third trimester. You'll have antenatal sessions to build a picture of what you want, including the parts that are difficult to say out loud: a previous birth that went badly, anxiety about intervention, complicated family dynamics.

From around thirty-eight weeks Vanessa is on call. When labour begins you decide when she joins you, at home or at hospital, and she stays continuously from that point. Not in shifts. Not until the end of a rostered day. Continuity is the whole point, and it's the one thing hospital systems struggle to offer.

The fourth trimester

The weeks after birth get less attention than they deserve. Postpartum visits cover feeding, whatever form it takes, settling and sleep, physical recovery, and processing the birth itself, which is often the piece people most need and least expect.

Vanessa is also Practice Manager for Dr Joseph Sgroi, which means she knows the clinic, the hospitals and the people in them. If you need a psychologist, a lactation-aware ear, a physiotherapist or simply a phone call returned, she knows exactly who to ask.