The role of a doula is nothing new. For as long as humans have lived in community, there have been those who quietly and steadfastly walked alongside others through life’s most profound thresholds. Just as every village had a healer or spiritual guide, there were always people, often women, who knew how to tend to a birthing mother, or how to sit with the dying, offering comfort, practical support and a steady presence. These were community roles, passed down through observation, experience and care, rather than through formal qualifications. They belonged to the fabric of daily life, woven into the rhythms of birth, death, and everything in between.

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Have you noticed how the concept of connection has gradually become a lost art form since the pandemic? So many of us got used to not leaving the comfort of our homes during those long, uncertain lockdowns; and now, five years on, it seems fewer and fewer people are gathering, sharing, or simply being together in the ways we once took for granted.

Image credit: Esther Hall