Lou Hirst

More about me

I am a Recognised Postnatal Doula, FEDANT Breastfeeding Counsellor and Gentle Sleep Practitioner based in Warwickshire. I trained as a Norland Nanny in 2004 and now live in Rugby with my husband Ben and our two children (and two dogs Olive and Ivy!).

I have always been absolutely fascinated by babies and parenthood, but this was definitely heightened after I had my own children when I realised there was a real lack of support and evidence based information available to many new parents. Having gained experience at Norland, nannying in London caring for lots of newborn babies (including twins and triplets) and learning the most through becoming a mother myself, I feel extremely privileged to support families at this incredible time in their lives now as a Doula. I also volunteer with Barnardo’s in my spare time helping to run baby groups, weigh in and feeding support clinics.

The entrance to parenthood isn’t always a smooth ride and I believe the calm, kind, respectful presence of a Doula is what everyone deserves. I am empathetic, caring and patient with a keen interest in baby development and the benefits of bonding and attachment. I am here to help you make sense of everything and to tune into your intuition. I offer a holistic support network, whether that is to sit chatting over a cuppa debriefing your birth experience, researching ideas with you, ensuring you are well nourished, popping to the shops for you and whizzing the hoover around, or enjoying baby cuddles whilst you take a shower or a long awaited nap.

I will provide a circle around your family offering a listening ear, reassurance, the latest evidence-based practice, advocating for your choices and ensuring you feel confident in your ability to parent. I signpost where necessary and wish to complement and enhance this experience for you rather than overshadow it. I want to put YOU first.

Here are some testimonials:

’My experience with Lou has been positive from our first meet. She arrived equipped with a ring binder full of useful information before the baby was born. This enabled my partner and I time to process information and make informed decisions about our baby. She offers an enthusiastic, kind and non-judgemental experience, ensuring the well-being of family and baby are met throughout. Lou has gone above and beyond her role. She is always quick to respond to queries and frequently sends follow up information and resources to help us further. I personally struggled to establish breastfeeding. This was initially due to poor latch. Eventually it worked better for me to dual feed. Lou helped me improve my latch and offered advice on products used to help damaged nipples. She additionally supported me when seeking breast pumps and helped me process the guilt I felt for not exclusively breastfeeding. Additionally, Lou also helped me to process my birthing experience. Lou continued to support other areas of our baby’s development such as the correct ways to swaddle a baby, techniques for stimulating baby etc. Her advice is current and relevant, and she adds a personal touch by relating to her own experiences helping me contextualise different information. Additionally Lou has watched our baby, enabling me to garden and manage other day to day tasks. She even helped care for our pet rabbits without hesitation. Lou is a fantastic doula and has helped me alter life to parenthood with ease and confidence. She has excellent interpersonal skills, adapting to sensitive conversations with ease. She is a credit to the doula team. I fully intend to keep using Lou’s services throughout our postnatal parenthood journey.’ J Shaw

‘I absolutely love having support from Lou. I personally find her so refreshing and a positive, breath of fresh air with her naturally sunny disposition. Lou is willing to just get stuck in, and she is always using her initiative to pick up the regular tasks that she now knows I worry about or would spend my time doing instead of being with my baby. She is able to be that support and hold my baby if I need time to complete some work, if I am all touched out, if I need to have conversations with people and can’t have a baby in the background etc. Lou mainly helps me to keep on top of the day to day chores, but she also allows me to spend quality time with my other children by caring for my daughter during my morning school drop off. Just having her to support me means so much because I am often solo parenting due to the nature of my husband’s work. Lou is also always seeking to support me, offering me lunch and drinks and time out.  I trust her completely, especially with my baby. My husband is so pleased I have regular, reliable and qualified support.  He appreciates how tricky parenting young children with different needs and schedules is, and he knows that he can’t support me enough due to his work commitments. I am extremely grateful to have found Lou… she’s awesome!’ Mrs D

‘I feel well looked after and more relaxed with the whole situation at home when Lou comes round. She has been fantastic at recommending websites for example local area clubs, products etc along with giving me helpful advice where I wasn’t certain what to do. Specifically, when my little one got a high temperature from his first jabs and help with him teething early (at 2 months), suggesting options to soothe him which I can access at his age. I love how she comes in and makes me a cup of tea, a small gesture but one that instantly calms me if I have had a more challenging day. She helps out with making me dinner when needed and also cuts if up so I can still eat it when I’m breastfeeding. Which I can’t tell you how helpful that is for me! My other half is very grateful for all her help especially as I have no one else around to help me out. He really appreciated her when I managed to ruin my nipple shields so I couldn’t feed my little one and she went out of her way to drive around town to get me some so I could feed him. We both don’t know what we would have done without her!’ E Anderson