About Me

Sally Baker is an experienced professional doula. She holds Birthing From Within childbirth preparation classes and she is an active committee member of the Gauteng Breastfeeding Forum. Sally has been attending births as a professional doula since 2003. Her extensive experience as a doula includes supporting couples and mothers who birthed in private hospitals, in active birth units and at home in Johannesburg and Pretoria as well as public hospitals. She has experience with water birth, cesarean birth, VBAC's, inductions, twin births, epidurals, natural birth, single mothers, mothers whose babies will be adopted, still births and supporting families who wish to have older children and other family members present at the birth.

Her professional training is as a social worker and her experience includes counseling, family therapy, marriage preparation and enrichment, trauma debriefing, sexuality education, parenting groups and community work. The varied and vast experience she has gained working as a doula and listening to parents and supporting them though pregnancy,birth and the first few days, weeks and months of parenthood together with her social work experience has put her in a good position to offer counselling to people during this phase of their lives. Sally has a private practice as a social worker. She has developed a speciallity in birth story (trauma) healing. She counsels in Ranburg and Midrand. Sally is a member of the National Association of Perinatal Social Workers in America.

Sally has attended workshops with Maria Sterrenberg (Village Doula training), Jacky Bloemraad-de Boer - Holland (acupressure, reflexology, rebozo technique, polarity, moxibustion and cupping - techniques useful for natural inductions (eg where your waters have broken and contractions have not started), helping with difficult labours and positioning babies into a good position for birth), Lactation Management Course with Brenda Campbell and Brenda Pierce (breastfeeding), Laura van Deth - Holland (Midwife; water birth), Elena Tonetti - USA (Russian Spiritual Midwife; gentle birth and limbic imprinting - how birth and the first few hours, impacts on the baby's well being emotionally and physically), Jodi Hall - Canada (DONA Certified Doula, Masters in Woman's studies and director of A Safe Passage in Canada) - training on identifying and reducing the impact of trauma, childhood sexual abuse and ongoing physical, emotional or sexual abuse on pregnancy, childbirth and early postpartum including post natal depression. - Advanced Birthing From Withing training in America. Birth Story Listening and Teaching Birth Art with Pam England, Sally is currently in training as a FEAR to FREEDOM in Birth facilitator.

Sally is a mother of two children, Jennifer (15) and Dylan (11)and is also blessed with a very supportive husband.