About The Doula
My name is Sue Rickman. I am a self-employed, married mother of two boys. I offer support during pregnancy, labor, childbirth, breastfeeding, and postpartum. I feel that every woman deserves a doula. My goal is to help each of my clients to have a healthy pregnancy, a great birth, and a happy postpartum. I offer unbiased support to every mother, regardless of lifestyle, marital status, religious belief, ethnicity, and age.
A doula is a trained professional who provides emotional support and non-medical assistance before, during, and after birth. A doula provides continuity of care through hospital shift rotations and alternating provider schedules. A Doula helps the woman's birth partner to comfortably participate in the labor and birth, and helps siblings adapt to life with the "competition".
I earned my Bachelor of Arts degree from Illinois State University in 1995, and focused my studies in Anthropology, Sociology, Womens Studies, and Philosophy.
I received my training from the Childbirth and Postpartum Professional Association (CAPPA).
I completed the CAPPA Labor Doula Training in April, 2009 in Florence, AL. I completed all my requirements for certification in August 2010, and am awaiting CLD credential from CAPPA.
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I have specialized training in water labor. I have experience in natural homebirths, medicated hospital births, natural hospital births, and am experienced with helping women confined to the bed with epidurals.
My services are for families in the Shoals area of Northwest Alabama, although I will travel for the opportunity to serve at a home birth attended by a certified professional midwife.
I also have several years experience in volunteer counseling, as a rape crisis counselor, drug abuse counselor, and lactation counselor.
Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.
Lance Armstrong