The Ordinary Doula Podcast

E95: Burnout, Boundaries, and The Birth Worker

• Angie Rosier • Episode 95

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We explore burnout and boundaries in birth work with candor and care, from compassion fatigue to practical systems that protect energy and improve outcomes. We share tools for communication, caseload limits, backup plans, debriefing, rest, and reconnecting with joy.

• symptoms of burnout in doulas and caregivers
• compassion fatigue and emotional load
• on-call life, identity and fear of letting clients down
• culture of hustle versus balance
• communication windows and phone settings
• client caps and counting collateral time
• backup systems and shift handoffs
• planned recovery days and true time off
• not inheriting client challenges
• debriefing, mentorship and peer support
• continuing education as renewed purpose
• transition rituals and non-work hobbies
• choosing one boundary to start this week
• modeling self-care for clients and family

Reach out and make a human connection today—text or call a friend, meet for a walk, or lunch. Choose one boundary this week and honor it.


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Show Credits

Host: Angie Rosier
Music: Michael Hicks
Photographer: Toni Walker
Episode Artwork: Nick Greenwood
Producer: Gillian Rosier Frampton
Voiceover: Ryan Parker

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Ordinary Doula Podcast with Angie Roger, hosted by Birth Learning, where we help prepare folks for labor and birth with expertise coming from 20 years of experience in a busy Doula practice, helping thousands of people prepare for labor, providing essential knowledge and tools for positive and empowering birth experiences.

SPEAKER_00:

That's kind of been my what my career has been centered around for the last 20 some odd years. And I love it. I love every aspect about this work. And today's episode is kind of timely because I do love this work, but today's episode, we're talking about burnout. This is something that many birth workers may experience. I'm actually getting ready tomorrow to teach a postpartum doula training. I've got an all day ahead of me tomorrow doing that. And as I've been preparing for that, I honestly had a little pep talk with myself. I'm like, all right, Angie, you got to pull it together and put a positive spin on this work. Um, because you're, you know, we want to leave with enthusiasm and a fire and passion to do this work because I wasn't feeling it sometimes this week. Honestly. So this episode is timely for me. Um, so those of you who are doulas, maybe you can relate. Those of you who use doulas, maybe you can empathize and kind of treat your doula with kindness and compassion because this can be hard work sometimes. I just finished um two crazy work weeks. Everything came all at once with births and tons of lactation visits and a good deal of overnights. I honestly did an 85-hour work week and a 91-hour work week. Um, some of that work was sleeping, you know, for sure. But um, and miraculously I didn't miss anything as far as I had some big family events in there as well, and was able to um go to everything, but probably wasn't my very best two weeks of life for sure. Um, sometimes the work gets like that. I sure hope not often. Um, but sometimes doulas work 10 hours a week, sometimes they work five, sometimes they work 95, um, just depending on what the week looks like. So this episode talking about boundaries and burnout. Um uh I just want to like recognize that that can be real. Um, most doulas I know absolutely love this work. You have to have a passion for this work. It's not for everyone, it's not for the faint of heart or mind or body. It's uh it can be actually really hard work, although it's incredibly rewarding as well. Um, and there's something called compassion fatigue when you are showing compassion so much and giving of yourself and um caring for others. Like doulas are caregivers, whether it's a postpartum doula, birth doula, lactation consultant, they listen compassionately, they care, they kind of carry that with them. But you have to have a full cup to be able to pour from that cup. So boundaries are incredibly important, they're not barriers, they're kind of a great structure that allows birth workers to do this work and do it sustainably, do a high quality of work. So compassion fatigue is real. Um, and and honestly, I can say I really do love, love, love and give my all to every single client, but it does wear on me. And and doing that constantly um can be pretty challenging when you're a caregiver all of the time. There can be an emotional exhaustion, um, and there can be a physical exhaustion after intense births or you know, several overnights or something. Um, sometimes you kind of feel kind of irritable. And I would say that most of the time, in my case, like um I get pretty, what's the word? Like tender. If I've had a um a long birth or a hard birth or lost some sleep, I'm pretty weepy actually. Not like crying, but pretty weepy. I actually met up with my kids um this week. We had some family in town, and I finished a birth I'd been at most of the night, and I got relieved uh kind of midday in just enough time to meet my family. We went um downtown and had a fun event. So I met up with my kids and some other relatives and joined them for some activity. So I was kind of tired, but doing okay. But everything just made me weep, and my kids were just kind of making fun of me that I was crying at everything, and I do get pretty weepy, and that um and sometimes sometimes people get irritable. I might get pretty irritable, but I just slow down. I kind of just do a real slowing of my thinking and my moving. Um, and sometimes we don't have time to slow down, which can be can be challenging. Sometimes that can wear on your passion of the work. Um, and a lot of people feel called to do this work. Like it's this is this is an interesting role of work because it's not just like, hey, I'm a good uh, you know, good project manager, I'm a good engineer or something else, but we wrap this up in our identity a lot because people do this love it so incredibly much. Um and then sometimes there's body breakdown, right? Like sleep disruption is a true thing. And that honestly, as I'm getting older, makes me pretty nervous. I'm pretty um cautious about the sleep that I can get. People get headaches or immune systems are challenged. Um, so doas need to take very, very good care of themselves because sometimes they can't. So all the other times when it's an option, they need to be really good about their sleep, um, nutrition, hydration, exercise, take care of yourself so that you are there to take care of others. So having these challenges doesn't mean you're not cut out for this work. It just means that you're normal, that you're human, and that you need to put some boundaries in place so that you can continue to do this work. A lot of birth workers, I think, struggle with boundaries because your identity is so wrapped up in helping each other's and being available. Like this is a very strange line of work in that you have to be available 100% of the time, depending on how you structure your um practice or your partnership or your um backup system. Um, sometimes you are available 24. I've basically been on call 24-7 for 23 years. Um, a couple breaks here and there when I'm really truly like gone and out of town, but really like have to be available. Um, and there's a fear too of letting people down. Your professional reputation oftentimes is tied to your services, of course. And you want to keep that a good professional reputation, so not to let anybody down, but provide high quality service for everyone. Um, and and sometimes too, I think we're afraid of taking breaks because um, like your income is tied to this, right? And so honestly, for some people, like, yeah, I want I want all the clients I can get. That's all the money I can get. But does that you know add up to quality work? So that might be a personal boundary that you set in place for yourself. And then in our in our culture, a lot of times, our broader culture, there's not a lot of respect for downtime. Like um, our culture around working hard and and and going 100 miles an hour, like people, it's kind of messed up, but we really respect that. It's a little bit backwards, but balance should be something that we respect more and strive better for. So uh don't be trying to be a superhuman. You're not just try to be a kind and honest human and a real human and set yourself up to succeed within those, within those realms. So practicing boundaries will protect you. They'll give you a higher quality product, which is you um set certain hours or days um for communication that's not birth related, right? Like um, that's not like, hey, I'm in labor right now. But if you need to, you know, redo interviews or consults or something like you can set certain times for that, set boundaries for that. Um, and have time expectations for you, for your client. So, you know, I'll respond to emails or inquiries that aren't urgent about imminent labor within 12 hours or 24 hours or something. And maybe you treat day and nighttime on call a little bit differently. Um, maybe your phone is at a different setting for for clients and you can silence it for other things during the night. I know a lot of times I'm just drifting off to sleep when um I get some weird, strange late night text. I am not, you know, unaccustomed to late night texts for sure. And I have, you know, my phone is set to wake me up during the night. But um, gosh, if it was one that woke me up and I didn't need to be, then that can be kind of frustrating. So set some some boundaries around those kind of things. And then as far as scheduling goes, set a maximum number of clients per month and be reasonable about it and realize that each client comes with a certain number of appointments as well, right? It's not just a one birth you're going to. It might be one birth, one consult, two postpartums, or two prenatals and several phone calls and texts as well. Like it a client comes with a whole lot more um collateral than just their birth, of course. And then creating a clear backup system for yourself is so vital. Um, I realized that when I was pregnant with my last baby who's almost 12, and I'd been doing solo doula work pretty dang busy for years, years, years. And when I was pregnant, I reached out for help and I said, you know what, I could do 12 hours. Can you come in and back me up after 12 hours? And um I found a good doula colleague that did that, and we kind of morphed into a partnership after that, a really great backup system where we never are gone more than 12 hours now, and that's incredibly sustainable. Sometimes we make it shorter than that, depending on the timing of things. And then plan days of rest um after births or plan weeks of rest sometimes, as far as like I'm gonna block out certain weeks where I won't have clients and don't do work. Now I am terrible at this. Terrible, terrible, terrible. I am need to take my own advice here, but um, because of the nature of the work I do, I have lots of different types of jobs and um I work so many days. Like what I'm realizing in my work is I need to take days off. Like, honestly, take days off. You it's kind of crazy how many days in a month I work. Um, and maybe it's just one lactation appointment or one overnight or um one prenatal or something, but it's super awesome to have a day or days. Um, I get really envious of people who work a nine to five Monday through Friday. I'm like, wow, you have two days, you don't have to ever work. Um, and sometimes as with this birth work, it's it can be seven days a week, pretty quick. So plan days of rest, plan, plan days off. And depending on the type of birth work you do, you can fit that in there. Um, and also this is a craft, I think, to be um acquired over time, but learning not to inherit your clients' um challenges and not morph them into your own, not take them on as your responsibility, that you are the only one, the only way for them to get out of this challenge or that challenge or to address it as you. You as a doula are a very key emotional physical support person, very key to their experience, but not the only key. There's a lot of other pieces involved, so don't look at yourself as the only team member or the most important team member. Um, we need our clients to be able to be independent without us, emotionally, physically um be responsible when we are not there. And so kind of leaving those birth stories at the birth. When I was a newer doula, that was hard. That was really, really hard. I would internalize that. If someone had a C-section, it kind of ruined me for a little while. Um, if somebody had a traumatic birth or, you know, a really disappointing outcome in in some regard, and that's different for everyone, that really ate at me for a long time. And I realized that I needed to process that with someone. And for me, the best person to do that was another birth worker. Having a doula partner helps a lot with that. Somebody who knows the situation pretty well is as someone good to bounce things off of. Um, and time, like just time and experience help those to be uh and perspective, help those to be a little more, um, a little softer for me to carry. And and then protecting your personal life, having a personal life, right? Like protect your partner, protect your kids if you have them, like give unadulterated time to them, like where you're not um glued to your phone or answering emails. I I remember when I became a lactation consultant um and I spoke to a doula who is a very busy, fabulous doula in her area, who had also become a lactation consultant and become a very busy lactation consultant. And I said, Oh, that's gotta be nice that you're not like on call in lactation like you are in birth. And she laughed at me. She said, actually, um, you still get a ton of urgent texts and phone calls and things. And I found that to be true. Um, where you know, like I can compartmentalize my appointment and I had this appointment, I charted it, whatever with my lactation clients, and then I'll still get texts and calls about this, that, and the other. So it there's some blurry boundaries there, but um kind of protect your personal life and block out time where you are not um not tied to your work because this work, by the nature of it, we're tied to it quite a bit. So create some time that you're not um sometimes creating rituals to transition after work, coming back into your other life or family life or other roles that you may have. Um, that can be helpful, whether that's um something you do on the way home afterwards, something you listen to, something you see, something you um smell sometimes, have kind of a ritualistic, maybe it's a being somewhere, you know, just going stopping and getting a drink on your way home, or being in your backyard for a little bit, going for a walk, whatever that might be, transition back into being focused, fully focused in your life. Um so there is uh some things for burnout recovery and prevention. Prevention's huge, right? Um, getting sleep, like sleep when you can. Like I used, I'm kind of an idol. I'm getting to be less of an eye-dowl as I'm working on that. Um, but when it's time to go to bed, go to bed. Go to bed early. Learn to go to bed a little bit earlier because there are the nights that you can't. Um, find support groups. Um, I love to see groups of doula who, doulas who combine together to support one another. That makes this work so much more sustainable. Um, for when you're giving emotional support and seeking emotional support. Um, and maybe mentorship. Find a mentor, someone who you appreciate and admire the work that they do. Seek out some guidance from them or some advice. Like you can skip a lot of lessons when you learn from masters and not learn the hard way, but learn from someone who knows, has the experience. Um, so kind of watch, look around and see who you can learn from. And then debriefing, debriefing after birth, whether it's a great birth or a difficult birth. I have a lactation colleague that she and I cross paths every single week. She's also a birth dual and a postpartum duela. We have very similar lives that are which are kind of crazy doing all the work. Um, and she has become like someone, even in our quick crossing of paths, we check in on each other. Um, and if I this week, actually, I was called off from the hospital and I'm like, oh my gosh, I wonder how she's doing. I gotta check in. Uh, I actually did go in and see her for a little bit for other reasons, but having someone who can check in on you and you can check in on them, and you can kind of debrief after things. And then getting continuing education. Sometimes I find that as I'm feeling a little burnout for my work, when I dive into the professionalism of it, um, the latest research, the um cutting edge, whatever's going on at the time, it refuels my passion for that. So that can nourish um your journey as well. And then taking time off, time off that you actually truly honor. I we have a home across the country that we go stay in sometimes, and last year we went for a whole month and it was so much fun um just to go be somewhere different. But I have colleagues there and I worked there for that whole month. I worked a lot, um, helped out my colleagues. It happened to be the time when they needed a lot of help, so I did a whole lot of work there, um, which was great, but I didn't really get that time off. I was just doing things in a different place. This summer when we went back there, we were only gone for a couple of weeks, and I purposely did not work while I was there. And I came back to my real life and went to I went to the hospital where I work and just saw it with new eyes and was refreshed in the things that I'd done over and over and over again. Um, I was doing them in a fresh way, in a more appreciative way. So sometimes taking that time off really can boost your joy in the work and your appreciation of the work. Finding other joys and hobbies, this is also something I'm not great at. So it says, you know, we talk about finding joys and hobbies that are not your dual work, something outside your dual identity, um, because we tend to wrap up our identity in our work sometimes as we do this work. And this is something I also struggle with, like finding a joy or a hobby. Like honestly, I've have set a goal to watch a movie for the last three weeks, and I have failed miserably at this goal. Um, I am kind of a workaholic, and if I have a minute, I'm gonna work on something, develop something, do something, chart something, write something, whatever that might be. Um, so I'm setting goals to watch movies, and I'm not doing well yet. Sometimes I'll set a goal to do a puzzle, like just something that's that's different to um to do something a little bit different, which helps prevent burnout. I need to be better at that. And then realize what restores you. That's gonna be different for everyone. Maybe it's going for a swim, maybe it's getting out in the mountains for a hike or being with a friend, maybe it's um, you know, listening to a podcast, whatever that is that restores you might have something to do with your work, it might have nothing at all to do with your work, and that's so totally fine. Um, and then realizing like where can I just loosen up a little bit? Where can I loosen my grip? I think sometimes we get so buried. And this goes for a lot of works, right? Not just our our birth work, but a lot of people in our work, like whether you're a teacher or a nurse or uh an attorney, like um learning where we can loosen our grip, where do we not have to hold on so tight? It shouldn't be this hard. Um, how are we making things harder? Because realizing that you are important, you are valuable, you're a resource, and you're not a renewable resource without rest. And whatever work you do, you need to rest. And so I want to I want to just kind of wrap up here by by um reiterating that boundaries protect everyone's well-being. When you set boundaries for yourself, and for me, I find I'm the hardest person to keep my own boundaries. Um, I surpass them more than other people do, than my, like say my clients do. They don't stomp on my boundaries um very much at all, but I stomp on my own. But um reframing boundaries as a form of quality, quality product, and love toward yourself and your clients. When we have a healthy birth worker, a healthy doula, a healthy lactation consultant, um, a healthy partner, whatever that is, healthy in every way, right? Because she's got good sleep, good nutrition, good exercise, good balance in life, we have better client outcomes. You can be more sustainably present. Um, you can be a better resource for your clients. And think of the people in your life you're also being an example for. Whether you're being a great example or not a good example, a non-example, you are also modeling to those who watch your life closely, whether that's children, family members, close friends, parents, partners, whoever that is, model for them what it looks like to take good care of yourself. This will also help your clients be able to take care of themselves, right? We teach parents all the time, like ask for help, there's help to be had. Um, that message is the same for doors as well. Ask for help. Sometimes this can be a lot can be difficult work for sure. Um, sometimes it's lonely work, it's often exhausting work. Um, but it's so rewarding. So this has been good for me as I'm gearing up again tomorrow to teach uh postpartum doula training, that I can teach it with fervor and with passion that I very often feel, but the last week or so have not felt. I almost want to say to the the attendees, I like email like, are you sure? Are you sure you want to do this work? Um, but of course, that's not my my regular or my main message. Um, but maybe I was feeling a little bit of burnout with my last crazy couple of weeks. So burnouts, it can be common. Um, do things to avoid it, um, set boundaries for yourself, keep to your boundaries out of respect for yourself and quality to your clients. Um, and choose one boundary this week, one thing you can improve upon. That might be a boundary for, hey, I'm gonna go to bed a little bit earlier, or oh, I'm gonna go for a walk every day. Um, but be gentle to yourself as you settle into taking care of yourself because you deserve it. You deserve support, you deserve rest, you deserve to take care of yourself because your well-being matters to you and all those around you, not just for the work you do, but the life you live. Like looking back, you want to be able to look back and say, you know what? I did a good job for me and for my clients. That's how that's how you'll do it. So I want to end this podcast um by thanking you for listening. Thanks for being with me today. Um, hopefully you can take something that you've thought about or some new concept um today and apply that into your own life. And as always, I want you to reach out and make a human connection. Another goal I have is to make a social connection in person every single, I mean, I'm making a lot of connections in person, but one that's just social, just fun. Um, so I try to go for a walk with a friend, meet up for lunch with a friend, text or call a friend. Um I have a pretty long list of people I'm gonna be getting to over the next few weeks, which I'm excited about. But I want you to reach out and make a connection to someone, some type of a connection to another human that's important for us. Um, hopefully you'll find the joy and the reward in doing so, and others will as will as well. Hope you have a great day. Thanks for being with me, Angie Rosier on the Ordinary Doula Podcast, and hope to see you again next time.

SPEAKER_01:

Tune in next time as we continue to explore the many aspects of giving birth.