Bridget Sheeran SRN, RM, MSc , LCH, MCH has a background in nursing and midwifery in hospitals and the community. Bridget has four sons, three of them born at home, and one waterbirth. She has been an Independent midwife in London, Dublin, Wicklow and Cork
She has a MSc in Midwifery from Trinity College and Bridget founded the Community Midwives Association in Ireland (recognised by Dail Eirean as a group representing the interests of Midwives practising outside hospitals and supporting women’s choice in maternity care services).
Women contacted Bridget to train them to become Doula's in Cork as Bridget had been including women in her classes, to support women in birth and provide a 'Doula service' throughout her homebirth midwife career. Bridget has worked with Doula's within the hospital setting as well as in her community to the benefit of the parents she attended.
She has a MSc in Midwifery from Trinity College and Bridget founded the Community Midwives Association in Ireland (recognised by Dail Eirean as a group representing the interests of Midwives practising outside hospitals and supporting women’s choice in maternity care services).
Women contacted Bridget to train them to become Doula's in Cork as Bridget had been including women in her classes, to support women in birth and provide a 'Doula service' throughout her homebirth midwife career. Bridget has worked with Doula's within the hospital setting as well as in her community to the benefit of the parents she attended.
For over 30 years, I have been passionate about women supporting each other in birth and believe that there should not be any barriers to women having any person that they choose to support them within the maternity care system; wherever they are; whoever they are; however they birth their baby and whatever their background or education is.
For some, my course will bring the participants personal strengths to the surface so that as a Doula they themselves can offer their best, and develop and improve with each mother that may book with her services or asks her as a sister/cousin/mother/grandmother or friend for Doula type support.
For others it will be the start of an incredible journey of 'being with women', not as a medical person, but there in person for women who book their services. She will offer women a 'womanly sense' of physical, emotional and up-to-date support service throughout pregnancy, birth and the newborn period.
For some, my course will bring the participants personal strengths to the surface so that as a Doula they themselves can offer their best, and develop and improve with each mother that may book with her services or asks her as a sister/cousin/mother/grandmother or friend for Doula type support.
For others it will be the start of an incredible journey of 'being with women', not as a medical person, but there in person for women who book their services. She will offer women a 'womanly sense' of physical, emotional and up-to-date support service throughout pregnancy, birth and the newborn period.
My vision is that women will be there for childbearing women as they engage in doing the most important job in the world, as the life-givers of our society, birthing their babies. I feel there is a lost instinct amongst women to offer this support due to the way society overly respects written knowledge and the professions. When I listen to all kinds of women, young and older having babies...and if they are given the time and space to be heard, they too can make healthy decisions on their own, making informed choices about their own body and have their baby's interest and their family's interest at heart. Isolate the same women, and tell them what to do (with authority), without finding the way that their body might choose to do it, forces a compliance that many women regret afterwards. A Doula service is much needed in our communities because of the collapse of our midwife 'manhours per woman' . Hence there is a lack of individualised attention to the social aspects of becoming a mother for pregnant women, for one-to-one care in labour and crucially, the lack of postnatal care in Ireland compared to NI and the UK.
All that is natural in birth and afterwards for the woman and the baby is what is closest to Bridget's heart in her work as a family health practicioner and professional Homeopath
