In Conversation With Olga Proskuryakova
Birth and postpartum doula and founder of MotheRetreat, on what real support looks like in the weeks after a baby arrives.
What this conversation covers.
Everything below is Olga describing her own work, in her own words. Doula support is not a service Wellsprings Health provides.
The doula comes to your home, cares for the newborn, and brings the baby to you for feeds, or feeds the baby herself if you are not breastfeeding. The point, Olga says, is that the mother sleeps and is functional the next day.
In the day the work shifts toward education and emotional support, because hormones are moving and somebody has to hold that space. Olga is frank that a doula is also a second pair of hands: a real meal, laundry, and holding the baby so you can shower.
Olga says there are good night nurses, then draws a firm line. Her doulas carry certification, liability insurance, CPR and a background check, and pass her own skills assessment first. She adds that night nurses usually work without a contract, and that the role is built around the baby.
A common worry she hears is that the older child gets lost when the newborn arrives. Olga says a doula can feed the older one before preschool or put them to sleep. Whatever the priority is that day is the job, baby or mother or four year old.
Rest is the foundation, food is second. Olga suggests deciding in advance who is responsible for meals and the household, and being honest about which visitors will actually lighten the load. Families most often arrange around two months of support, while the medical postpartum window is six weeks.
Who Olga is, and where to find her.
Olga Proskuryakova is a birth and postpartum doula, a childbirth educator, a breastfeeding counselor, a closing the birth ceremony specialist, and the founder of MotheRetreat. She came to the work through her own first birth, unsupported and exhausting enough that she never got to enjoy it. For her second she hired a doula. She still does every family intake herself, across a team of about fifteen.
MotheRetreat is at 800 SE 4th Ave #800a, Hallandale Beach, FL 33009. Dr. Leslie says so on camera: she met Olga because Olga supported her after her own birth. Watch the full conversation on the clinic's YouTube channel. What we do at Wellsprings:
Three things worth taking from it.
Arrange it before the birth
Once the baby arrives, Olga says, the good intentions go out the window and every hour belongs to someone else. If the support is already booked, somebody other than you is making sure it happens, and you are not organising it from a chair at 3am.
Decide who is doing what
Rest first, food second, then a plain conversation about who handles which part of the household. Olga's line is that help has to be peaceful help. A house full of visitors waiting to hold the baby is one more job.
Ask who else you need
Doulas often notice a problem first, because they are in the house. If leaking, heaviness or pain with sex is what is showing up, that part is ours. Florida is a direct access state, so no physician referral is needed.
This is a time when really women need a village, but a lot of us don't have access to that naturally and so we have to create one.
What we actually treat here.
Urinary Urgency
A signal that will not wait. Common after a baby, and still not something you have to live with.
Coccydynia
Tailbone pain that can follow a long labour and make feeding and sitting something you brace for.
TMJ and TMD
Jaw pain and night clenching. The jaw and the pelvic floor tend to guard together, so we look at both.