We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Stefanie Melo. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Stefanie below.
Stefanie , so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
I’ve been drawn to pregnancy, motherhood and babies since I was a child. I followed a typical path, high school, college and then I didn’t really know where I’d go from there. I went back to school a few years later to become a massage therapist and I opened my own practice which grew pretty quickly. When I became a mother for the first time in my early 30s, I experienced an incredibly empowering and beautiful birth, quickly followed very heart-breaking breastfeeding journey.
My natural curiosity to understand pregnancy, birth, postpartum and lactation and my tenacity to find a path forward with breastfeeding, despite my challenges changed my career path. I became a doula and took multiple advanced trainings around infant development, lactation and I did a ton of research into the “dark corners” of lactation information.
Through attending 30+ births in a decade, birthing 5 children and walking through one pregnancy loss I realized that my true purpose is to serve mothers who experience anxiety. Recognizing that I would see mother, after mother go through what clearly wasn’t depression and also was incredibly challenging made me realized I was uniquely qualified to serve these women.
As I worked with client, after client I could see how my experience and expertise has the power to not only validate and emotionally support a struggling mom, but also to help her work through the anxious thoughts.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am a digital doula, which probably sounds weird if you’ve always pictured a doula squeezing a mom’s hips, or wiping the sweat off her brow during labor.
As a digital doula, I come alongside my clients in early pregnancy to help them navigate the murky path of maternity care, preparing for a newborn, experiencing the plethora of emotions during pregnancy, the unsolicited advice from friends, family and even strangers and offer both education and coaching support through pregnancy and 12 weeks postpartum.
The education portion is focused around helping mothers to have a healthy pregnancy, prepare for birth emotionally and physically, create a supportive postpartum experience and infant development & care. The support comes in the form of online community & coaching.
My favorite part of my work is that I offer both evidence and intuition for decision making. Not every journey needs to look the same, we don’t have to make the same decisions, but do do all deserve access to what the scientific evidence shows us, without devaluing our own inner guidance.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I would say my empathy, intuition and thirst for knowledge are the qualities that make me uniquely qualified for this work.
My experience as a birth doula, a massage therapist and a women with lactation challenges helped me to see that while having a birth doula is wonderful–women actually need, deserve and want much more than just support in labor.
For anyone becoming a parent, I would say: you will make countless decisions in your parenting journey. You’re going to get tons of conflicting advice, but don’t let that confused. Let it lead you to hearing and following your intuition, and make sure your decisions come from love, not fear.
If you’re someone trying to find your purpose and path, I’d encourage you to follow what really lights you up. You can be good at a thousand things, but the world probably needs that one thing you can’t stop thinking or talking about.
Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
My ideal client is someone who knows they don’t know it all, someone who values their well-being and truly wants to parent from their highest-self.
I’ve love working with professional clients who do want to breastfeed, and also understand they don’t have to be supermom and “do it all” to be a wonderful mom.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://stefaniemelo.com
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SageMotherhood
- Other: Podcast https://stefaniemelo.com/page/podcast Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/SageMotherhood/
Image Credits
Gina Bower (the professional image) Stefanie Melo for the rest
