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I've felt connected to birth long before I fully understood why.

HI, I’M LUA. she/her​

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​I've felt connected to birth long before I fully understood why. It was during my own first pregnancy that the pull became undeniable. I started reading, listening, learning, and then someone showed up, stayed steady, and held space for me. That planted a seed that eventually became this work. 

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I'm a psychologist, doula, and film photographer. I work in English and Spanish. I trained in San Francisco in 2018 and have been working with international and expat families ever since, in homes and hospitals, through every kind of birth there is.

 

I live in Amsterdam West with my husband and our three sons, each five years apart. I've been through birth and postpartum three times here, far from Patagonia where I grew up, and that experience is very much part of how I work. Every family I support carries me forward too.

I trained as a clinical psychologist before I became a doula, and that training doesn't stay outside the door when I come to a birth. It lives in how I read a room, how I listen, and what I pay attention to. What I notice that not everyone else does: sometimes what's happening in the room during labour isn't only about this birth. Fear can show up that belongs to an older story, a past loss, a difficult experience, a part of someone's history that hasn't had space to be named. I don't push through those moments. I recognise them, I slow down, and I make room for them without needing to fix or explain them away. That capacity to hold what's present without panicking about it is one of the most useful things I bring. 

 

Being invited into someone's birth is a privilege I don't take lightly. The more honestly you can share what you need, before, during, and after, the more precisely I can show up for you, in a way that feels seen.

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My approach is trauma-informed not as a label but as a practice. It changes how I ask questions before your birth, how I read what's happening in labour, and how I support you in the weeks after, especially if the birth didn't go the way you hoped.

Birth is as much psychological as it is physical.

Over time, supporting individual families expanded into something larger. I co-founded Hello Doula, an Amsterdam-based platform connecting families with doulas. I also co-founded Mothers on Film Amsterdam, a community project mixing gatherings and film photography around motherhood. 

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PROFESSIONAL TRAINING 

(Psychology & Mental health)
 

  • Psychologist · licensed clinical psychologist

  • Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

  • Infant-Parent Mental Health · postgraduate programme, UMass

  • Prenatal Development and Its Influence on Children's Development  University of Minnesota

(Postpartum & Newborn)

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  • Postpartum Doula Training · San Francisco General Hospital

  • Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC)

  • Newborn Behavioural Observations (NBO)

  • Certified Happiest Baby Instructor​

​​(Birth Doula Training)
 

  • Certified Birth Doula

  • Carriage House Birth Doula Training

  • Birth Doula Training at Natural Resources · San Francisco

  • Birthing From Within Training

(Child Development & Infant care)

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  • Certified Piklerian Early Childhood Education · Pikler-Lóczy Foundation for Children

  • Certified Instructor, International Association of Infant Massage

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