I’m chatting with the remarkable Tania Fragosa from The Grateful Doula. Tania offers her clients doula and birth photography services and is passionate about walking alongside her clients while holding space, guiding and sharing knowledge with them throughout their journey.
Tania is a mother of three beautiful daughters and her first birth was a very traumatic event. Through her experience she fell in love with birth work and everything that comes into it. She was motivated about studying and acknowledging the impact of trauma, especially birth trauma and how the affects ripple out into the birth mother, her family and her support network. Tania made it her mission to use trauma informed care in her approach as a doula and birth photographer to offer her clients a holistic compassionate service.
Tania takes us through what it looks like to use trauma informed care with her clients and acknowledges that you can’t keep pushing a pregnant woman in labor on and on as she might be pushed too far into a traumatic event. There can be a fine line between cheering the mother on and learning when to hold back and acknowledge where her head is at.
Tania advocates for health professionals to use empathy and think twice before saying something that can be interpreted as aggressive or dismissive that can lead the mum to freeze or disassociate.
As birth photographers, we have to know how to understand and work with our own triggers. Tania shares how every birth has the capacity to be triggering for the photographer and you must learn how you will overcome it in the moment. Have an active conversation with yourself about your own limits and participate actively in your healing.
Remember what can be traumatising for me may not be traumatising for you. You should be checking in with your clients on their own healing journey to find how you can best support them in the moment.
This was such an empowering and insightful conversation and I encourage you to tune in and take on board all of Tania’s wisdom and experience into your own practice.
LINKS
Where to find Tania Fragoso:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tania_thegratefuldoula/
Website: https://www.thegratefuldoula.nl/
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