Joana Schaaf
- Motueka Doula Team
About
Hi, my name is Joana. I am one of the three women in the Motueka Doula Team. Together we offers you compassionate support throughout pregnancy, birth and postpartum. We are three independent Doulas, each taking our own clients. We work together in a well supported team so we can offer you the best support.
I live in Marahau with my partner and our three children, living a life closely connected to nature and the rhythms of the seasons. This connection inspires the way I support women and families during the sacred journey of birth and parenthood.
I have a deep trust in birth and love supporting women as they transition into motherhood. I offer a calm, grounded presence that helps women feel safe, relaxed, and connected to their innate birthing instincts. I am passionate to support the whole family during pregnancy birth and postpartum, to let this experience of birth bring them closer together.
I have been a certified HypnoBirthing educator since 2021 and can support you with relaxation, breathing, and visualisation techniques for a more calm and confident birth experience. I have also trained as a Healing Birth Practitioner and can gently support the healing of previous birth trauma, helping you approach your next birth with confidence and trust.
As your Doula I offer you:
~A deep trust in the birthing process.
~A calm, grounded presence that honours the sacredness of birth.
~Childbirth education and breastfeeding support.
~A nourishing connection grown during your pregnancy to holistically support you through your childbirth journey.
~Nourishing meals, herbal teas and remedies. Support with your household. I look forward to meeting you!
Birth & Postpartum Doula, HypnoBirthing courses, Birth trauma support, debriefing
Serving Motueka and the surrounding areas
Reviews
We chose to do Hypnobirthing for our first pregnancy in the hopes of improving our homebirth experience. We found the hypnobirthing course to be a very valuable, far exceeding the birth preparartion information in the publicly funded antenatal class.
Hypnobirthing helped educate us on our birthing choices and gave us the confidence to make them as they arose at the time. The most valuable part of the course for me was learning to trust my body and practise meditation and relaxation techniques during pregnancy which helped a lot with pain management during birth.
In the end we had a positive home birth with no interventions. We invited Joana to attend our birth as an informal helper after we had met through her Hypnobirthing class. We are very grateful to have had her present as a representative of the hypnobirthing philosophy to support with decision making as different birthing challenges arose. She also took the pressure off my partner by taking over practical tasks (keeping the fire going and providing me with food/water etc) so he could focus on being mental support.
Now she is a trained Doula we would definitely have her back.
- Eva