A mother, a wife, a sister, a friend, an aunty, a shoulder to cry on and someone to celebrate life with, I live in my beautiful home in Maesycwmmer, in the South Wales Valleys, just outside Caerphilly.
Doulaing and enabling women to own their own power are my passions. I firmly believe that all women deserve to be listened to and treated with dignity and respect, in all walks of life. Pregnancy, birth and the post natal period, can be the most vulnerable, most raw, most powerful and most primal time of a woman’s life. The way we are treated at this time, how we birth and how we are treated while we birth and after birth, remain with us for the rest of our time on this earth and help shape our children, their children and the next generations.
My role is to support women and families, to help them achieve the births they want and deserve, wherever and however that is and to support them to have a joyous post natal experience and parenting journey and have set up a holistic pre-conception through to parenting hub, from egg collection, through your pregnancy, birth and into your parenting years I can support you.
I believe in choice and honesty, so that women can make informed decisions about their births and achieve the birth for them, at home, in hospital, vaginally or by caesarean birth. I have particular interests in twin and multiple birth, freebirth and gentle caesareans and have supported IVF and lone parent pregnancies.
Whether it is a first or a fifth baby, it brings me great joy walk alongside pregnant women while they take this transformative path, for a part or for all of the journey.
With four of my own children, my personal journey has moved through birth trauma to ecstatic birth.
I have personal and Doula experience of bottle feeding, tandem (and triandem) feeding, breast feeding, cloth nappies, baby wearing, natural term weaning and baby led weaning as well as one of my children being home educated.
An advocate of breast feeding as a biological norm, I do not judge those who do not feed this way. I aim to provide information that is lacking, my role is to support you in your feeding choices, without judgement.
As a doula I have worked with pregnancy and birth in many forms, at home and in hospital birth, from freebirth through to planned gentle caesarean and I work across a number of Welsh Trusts, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, Cwm Taf University Health Board, Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board. I also have experience of supporting twin pregnancy and birth and twins in the post natal period.
A trained breast feeding peer supporter, I have supported nursing strikes and relatching. I also have excellent links to other birth workers in our area and can sign post you to further support if needed.
Having supported loss in all its forms, I am able to hold and support you in trauma and grief and I have also supported rainbow pregnancies and births.
I love taking photographs and am a keen amateur photographer, (with a beautiful camera and lens), l have a real love of nature photography and photographing my children, for an additional fee I can incorporate photography into your package.
I can provide you with everything you need for your birth and newborn period, from birth pool hire and supplies, through essential oils and baby products, eco laundry, cloth and CSP, mooncups, cloth nappies and everything else you need. (Contact me for discounts and links).
In order to provide additional support to women and new (and not so new) parents, I co-admin a number of groups - details of which can be found HERE. Local groups have members from all over South Wales and the Home Birth Support Group UK is a national group.
I also run the South Wales Sacred Chant and Drum Group in my home village of Maesycwmmer, bringing my local community together.
Samantha Gadsden walks with women on their life’s journeys. She is an experienced Doula, based close to Cardiff in South Wales, mother to 4 children and wife to Eddie, more information can be found on her facebook page, Samantha Gadsden Doula and her website, Caerphilly Doula.
If you are interested in writing a guest blog or sharing a life or birth story please feel free to contact her HERE.
“Your Journey, Your Body, Your Baby, Your Birth"