Why I'm Not on the DoulaUK Directory

Hola, hello.

If you've been looking for a doula in North London and searched the Doula UK directory, you won't find me there. I get asked about this sometimes, so I wanted to write it down properly, not as a complaint, but as something I think matters for anyone choosing a birth or postnatal doula.

My training story

I trained as a doula almost eight years ago. My first introduction to this work was sitting with Michel Odent, listening to a lifetime of knowledge from someone who shaped so much of how we understand birth. He's since passed away, and I still carry what I learned in that room, it helped me define the doula I wanted to become and the families I wanted to walk alongside.

Doula Training with Michel Odent and Liliana Lammers, North London, 2018

From there, the natural next step was a formal, Doula UK–approved training. I trained with Conscious Birthing in 2019, led by Kate Woods, who was also part of founding Doulas Without Borders around that time. I was finishing work at a women's refuge, supporting women who had escaped domestic abuse and were rebuilding their lives with their children in temporary accommodation. Kate's approach and mine clicked instantly, we both understood that pregnancy, birth, and postpartum don't happen separately from the rest of a woman's life or crises.

Doula Training with Conscious Birthing, Glastonbury, 2019

That training gave me a strong foundation. But I've come to believe doula training is exactly that: a foundation, not a finish line. We learn by doing. We learn by staying humble, by telling our clients honestly when we're still growing, by reading, listening, and debriefing with our mentors. It's a shared learning process between doula and client, for as long as we do this work.

Why I never registered with Doula UK

Here's the part I couldn't explain for a long time. I completed the approved training, finished my mentored births, and became a mentor doula myself. And yet, I never signed up to the Doula UK directory. I had the code. I had the email. Three or four times over the years I opened that registration page — and never went through with it.

I understand now what I couldn't articulate then. As a migrant woman, a woman of colour, someone who learned English as a second language, something in me — call it intuition, call it a nervous system reading the room — never felt that Doula UK was a safe or welcoming space for me. And intuition isn't magic. It's built on our ability to read our environment, to notice what isn't being said, to sense safety or its absence in our bodies.

A few years ago, that instinct started to make sense. I began hearing accounts — from people inside and around the organisation — about racism, discrimination, racial microaggressions, and troubling positions from people in leadership. It confirmed what my gut had been telling me for years. Some doulas and doula trainers have tried to change it from within. From what I understand, that work has been genuinely difficult, and many who tried it eventually stepped away.

I'm not the only one

I'm not alone in this decision. Some approved trainers have left Doula UK, Abuela Doulas left 10 years ago. Others have left more recently, I know Birth Bliss Academy stepped away a few months ago, and Red Tent Doulas left a years ago.

I believe another way of organising this work is possible. But it has to start with organisations showing real accountability, and with individuals choosing not to stay in spaces that aren't safe for everyone. Because if a space isn't safe for women of colour, for Muslim women, for migrant women — it isn't truly safe for anyone.

What this means if you're looking for a doula

If you're searching for birth or postnatal support in North London, here's what I'd gently suggest: ask your doula whether they're part of Doula UK, and if so, why. Ask what they know, and whether they've thought about leaving. Their answer will tell you far more than a directory listing ever could — about what they actually value, and how far their advocacy extends beyond the birthing room and into the wider world.

Stay in solidarity with the doulas and trainers who've chosen to step outside these spaces. Ask questions. Look past the badges and directories to the values underneath.

Con cariño,

Rubi