Here is blog post from One World Birth’s founder Toni Harman. One World Birth has such an amazing goal on a world wide scale. Check out their site for great birth resources http://www.oneworldbirth.net/
Be sure to share your positive birth experience with the world. The more people who talk, the more births we can influence in the future.
“How To Get The World Talking About Birth
The driving force behind promoting DOULA! Film Screenings for World Doula Week was to do something pro-active that gets people talking not just about doulas, but about birth.
For if someone watches our DOULA! film and sees the lovely beautiful births (supported by doulas) and it inspires them to think more positively about birth, then we’ve created a ripple of change. And if that ripple spreads to their friends and family, so more people have a more positive approach to birth with less fear and so more people have better births – how wonderful is that!
So with 130+ DOULA! film screenings on the map, there’s hopefully going to be many ripples started that week – creating a wave of awareness spreading right around the world.
But that’s not enough. How else can we promote positive birth to a wider audience?
Something that’s free, easy to do, anyone can do (they don’t have to be a doula), wherever they are in the world and that doesn’t take long. Hmmm. Let me think. Or better still, let me write a few words about it….
DING! You can start your own blog like this one. A blog is different from a website in that a blog tends to be your own personal thoughts or opinions on a subject, like your own personal column in a newspaper. But if you’re a doula or other birth professional, it can also double as (or be part of) your website too – as most blogs also have contact details and descriptions of their business. So a blog can be a great promotional tool for yourself!
Setting Up A Blog
Setting up a blog easy and free to do. You can set up a blog within seconds. You just register on a blogging site, confirm your email address, name your blog, choose a blog template (from the hundreds available), click on “create a new post” and away you go! Here’s a couple of the most popular blogging sites: wordpress or blogger – but there’s many others too.
What Should You Write About?
About being a doula if you are one, or an expectant mamma, or about being a birth professional. About supporting mammas and pappas through pregnancy, birth and the first few weeks. About your passion for birth. Your views on the latest research. The ups. The downs. The side-ways views! In short, anything you like. You can post photos. Videos. If you are interested in something, other people will be too.
In recent weeks I’ve written several blogs about doulas:
Are Doulas The New Superheroes?
What Every Pregnant Woman Should Know
On Call Doulas: “Just In Case I’m At A Birth”
These posts didn’t take long. They’re fun to do and each of these blogposts were read over 1,000 times each! (I’m not trying to boast, but I was surprised myself at the number of times my posts have been read!)
Be Careful Of:
A couple of things: be careful of writing anything confidential or personal details about a birth/pregnancy/postpartum client without their permission.
You can be as controversial as you like – but be careful of libel or defamation laws as what you write is in the public domain. In short, make it clear that what you are writing is your own personal opinion and make sure everything is factually accurate. Here’s an overview of the legals of blogging.
Marketing Your Blog
And how do people get to know about your blog? Because you tell them! Either in person – you tell your friends, family, clients, neighbours. You can post links to your blog on Facebook or Twitter or Google +. Or you can post links on our DOULA! film Facebook page or on Twitter @doulafilm – and I’ll tell people to go and read your blog! And you can post links on doula forums, yahoo groups, comments on website pages, news articles. And if you add key-words, tags and links on your blog, then it’ll be picked up by Google & other search engines.
Why Have A Blog?
And why should you do this? Apart from self-promotion of your business and the sharing of knowledge, there’s the bigger picture.
Imagine if every single doula and every single birth professional (midwife, birth educator, lactation consultant, hypno practioner etc) had a blog.
I’m not sure how many doulas there are in the world (30,000??), or how many birth professionals (250,000+??) but if there were hundreds of thousands of blogs promoting positive birth, just imagine the difference that would make! If each of those blogs were read by at least 100 people that weren’t in the doula/birth world, then millions of people would hear about how amazing and positive birth can be!
So if more birth professionals had blogs
= more people would know about positive births
= more people would have less fear
= more people would have better births
= the world would be a better place!
So here’s my challenge. If you’re a doula or birth professional, why not start a blog and see if you can attract 100 people to your blog in one week. Encourage your friends to start their own blog. Encourage your clients too! Let’s get the birth-world writing, blogging, posting, linking, connecting, talking about birth & inspiring many ripples of change around the world!”
bumpbirthbaby.net 