Some info about the teachers
Olivia Seck
Olivia is your course guide. She is a mother,
holistic childbirth educator, birth companion,
trainer, hypnotherapist and HypnoBirthing teacher.
She has been teaching and supporting birthing women
and couples for over 15 years now. She has 4
children including a wonderful 6 years old who,
like his siblings, is her mischievous teacher on
the path of Motherhood.
On her quest for a holistic lifestyle and
profession at the beginning of the 80’s, Olivia
studied various aspects of holistic health :
humanistic psychology and education, counselling,
voice dialogue, movement and dance, healing and
infant massage. After training with the Holistic
Birth Foundation, she founded the Kin & Kin
Pregnancy practice in Devon and created The
Demestia Birth companion/doula training, a
distillation of her two decades of studies, her
professional experience supporting women through
life transitions and her 23 years as a mother and
partner.
After training with Marie Mongan, the founder of
HypnoBirthing in the USA, Olivia added another
dimension to her holistic approach and she created
BirthCreation, a holistic childbirth education
programme, which includes valuable hypnobirthing
techniques.This hypnobirthing approach has been
integrated in the Birthing Wisdom curriculum.
Olivia lives with her family in Devon where she has
a pregnancy practice and runs pregnancy retreats
Helen
Barker
Helen qualified as a Natural Active Birth and
Parenting teacher in 2004 and as a Doula in 2002.
She teaches Active Birth classes in Newton Abbot
and works as a Doula when her family life allows
it. Helen has a degree in Education and an M.A in
Applied Linguistics. She has experience of working
with both children and adults and loves teaching
and facilitating the passing on of information.
Helen has three young children – one born in
hospital and two born at home. A passionate
interest in pregnancy and childbirth has lead Helen
to working exclusively in this area.
Helen says, “pregnancy, childbirth and parenting
has been a hugely rich life experience encompassing
some of the hardest work, biggest struggles,
greatest joys and most intense personal and
spiritual growth that I have ever experienced!”
Julie
Osborne:
Julie is a mother of 2, recognised doula,
childbirth preparation mentor and breastfeeding
counsellor.
After having had a medical birth first time round
she knew she wanted a different experience with her
second baby. So her sister acted as her doula and
the difference it made to the confidence she had in
her body was huge, leading to have a
straightforward, drug-free birth.
She
decided she wanted to become a doula after being at
a friend’s labour and finding herself slipping into
the role easily, making both her friend and her
husband feel relaxed and able to cope well with
labour. She has been a doula to over 20 clients,
supporting a variety of birth experiences both at
home and in hospital. Many of the births she has
attended have been without intervention, but she
has also supported women through a range of
medicalised births. She is a member of Doula UK.
Julie has a good relationship with midwives and is
known in the John Radcliffe Hospital as she is
involved in the Maternity Services Liaison
Committee and works at the breastfeeding clinic
every week. This has given her the great privilege
of working with breastfeeding experts Chloe Fisher
and Sally Inch learning both the theoretical and
practical sides of breastfeeding from them and
consolidating this training by doing the UNICEF
Breastfeeding Management course. She has studied
with Pam England (birthingfromwithin.com) on her
Childbirth Preparation Mentor program.
Josephine
Ash
Josephine has been supporting mothers as a
breastfeeding councillor for 2 years. She was
trained by La Leche League.
From her training, personal and professional
experience, she knows how vital support is, in the
early weeks of a baby's life, to establish and
maintain a good breastfeeding relationship.
Antenatal breastfeeding information and
encouragement is also extremely beneficial.
On the Birthing Wisdom training, she will teach how
to support mothers in getting feeding off to a good
start, as well as ways to deal with common
breastfeeding problems. Making a difference as to
whether a baby will be breastfed or not is very
rewarding, and she looks forward to teach others
how they too can make that difference.
There may be other guest teachers passing on their
expertise at various times in the course.