“Postpartum [the time period following childbirth] is really up to nine months, if not arguably a year,” says doula Sarah Matney. While Matney started her education in Coronado, her career and research have taken her across the world. After graduating from Coronado High School in 2017, she attended Washington University in St. Louis, where she graduated in 2021 with a BA in Cognitive Neuroscience. Her undergraduate track was pre-med as she planned to become a doctor to help people.
As her classmates discussed rigorous plans for summer classes and the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test), Matney and her mom had a serious talk about med school, if she really wanted to go, and if she wanted to go right away. Another conversation with her college advisor reminded her that there are many different ways to help people. With her degree in cognitive neuroscience, she had a foundation in chemistry, physics, and biological sciences, but also a real heavy dose of neuroscience and psychology too. She decided it felt really good to lean into the psychological side.
Study abroad
The niche of helping women during their birth journeys came to Matney during her junior year while studying abroad in Copenhagen. She took a class called ‘Pregnancy, Birth, and Infancy in Denmark,’ which was taught by a midwife, and that class greatly influenced her.
While her studies in Denmark were short — the COVID pandemic hit two months into her time abroad — they were impactful. “I learned what a doula was in that class and became familiar with pregnancy and birth. It fit all of the anatomical and physiological changes that interested me in pre-med. Birth and postpartum are such rich life transitions, and it’s a body and mind, life restructuring.”
Matney calls it a “career that marries these two parts of my interests together in the most beautiful way.” While the world was shut down, Matney focused all of her efforts on becoming a doula. “It took me a year out of undergrad to bet on myself. The rest has been history in a very lovely way, and I feel so grateful for it. Never in my wildest dreams could I have anticipated where this path would take me.”
Sarah Rose Doula & Wellness
In 2023, Matney opened Sarah Rose Doula & Wellness in Seattle. “It felt really big and really lovely.” Matney explains, “The way the birth community works here in Seattle is that most individuals operate as a business. I don’t have any employees at this point, but it’s a great system to build into a birth collective.”
Matney says her favorite part of being a doula is the connection she makes with mothers. “I’ve always really valued my personal relationships, being upfront, being honest, and being authentic. I’m dropping in if I feel comfortable with you. Somehow I found my way into a career where people are giving that back to me, and they’re saying, ‘Yes, based on your energy and based on your personality, we want you at this very rich time in our lives to provide us with support because you know we feel drawn to you.’”
Most of her clients are first-time moms. “It’s such a beautiful time, and I get to provide love and care and encouragement as well as information and decision-making support. I really get to love up on people at a really transformative time in people’s lives.”
Fulbright Program in Mumbai
Ever since her study abroad program was cut short in 2020, Matney knew she wanted to go abroad again someday. After three years in the doula field, that opportunity arose through the Fulbright Scholar program, and she had a clear idea of what she wanted. “I was seeing some institutional gaps. When I was supporting clients in the hospital, I saw where guidance is given and where it is absolutely not given.”
“A lot of time, energy, and thought are being put into how we are managing labor and the immediate postpartum in the hospital. I realized there is hardly any time, guidance, support, or encouragement given to people on how to set up their longer postpartum time. That’s even more important in a place like the U.S. because we don’t have any standardized support from the government.”
Asked by her advisor if she had considered India, it clicked. “India was the perfect place,” said Matney. “The culture is different than the U.S. in terms of its intergenerational support. They have consistent postpartum rituals and a consistent confinement period for the mother to really recover and receive support from her female relatives and aunties. Everyone in that space helps her move through this new transition.”
“I chose Mumbai because I wanted there to be some sense of translatability back to the U.S. It’s a large urban city, and I wanted to have the aspects of a modernized city to be able to compare in my research and in my data. India is pushing towards modernization as a whole, and I wanted to see if these practices were relevant in the urban city, or if these are only practiced in rural parts of India.”
Research in Mumbai
Matney was careful with how she approached the interview process. “The culture is not as mental health-accepting there as it is here. If I were, as a foreigner, coming into people’s homes and asking them about a pretty taboo time, and then saying, ‘Do you think you had postpartum depression?’ that would have been way too much.” Instead, Matney focused more on the postpartum period itself. She learned it’s just as important in a city as in a village. “Every woman who I talked to said, ‘Of course we do this still. It doesn’t matter that we’re in Mumbai. This is what you do. This is part of having a baby.'”
What she found was that support is helpful, but it needs to be the right support. “Postpartum is such a nuanced time with emotions, body changes, and taking care of the baby. If you’re getting support from someone you don’t feel comfortable with, you’re not going to feel like you can really drop into all of the emotions. There’s going to be some repercussions in little ways because of that.”
“It’s cool to see that different cultures have different practices, and giving the mother time in the postpartum to recover and heal, mentally, emotionally, and physically is positive. But we’re all still humans at the end of the day. It doesn’t matter what culture we live in. We still need to feel safe and cared for by someone who makes it feel meaningful. That is really the biggest key.”
Growth and change
During her first three years as a doula, Matney was focused on doing birth work. Coming back from Mumbai, she shifted into more postpartum work. “I would go over some postpartum info in one of my appointments with the couples during pregnancy, but I’ve started to revamp my content and the advice I give. I’m excited for when I step into doing births again, but I emphasize even more how important it is to take care of yourself postpartum and try to get creative with families on the support they have. I really workshop ‘Hey, how can we make this work? How can we actually set you up?’”
She shares that, while she previously gave similar advice, she is now following up in a very different way. “I ask if they’ve created a plan. Who’s doing the meal train? When is family coming? It was more informational questions from the birth side, but now I explain why it is really important for them to get a plan set up.”
Our culture emphasizes the labor itself, and the labor is definitely an event. But then the focus drops off. I emphasize postpartum much more at this time.
American culture and postpartum care
In today’s world of social media, comparison, and the pressure to ‘bounce back,’ Matney provides insight into the reality of the postpartum period. “We don’t have the correct view, as a society, on how much we need to give our bodies a break and time to heal in the postpartum time. Six weeks only means the uterus doesn’t have an open wound where the placenta was. That’s literally all it means. There are other changes in the body. Other organs have shifted. It’s amazing what the body had to do across nine months to grow the baby.” She continues, “There’s a phrase in the birth community that postpartum is forever because you have a baby. You’re always going to have had a baby. But, purely in physiological and anatomical terms, it should be nine months to a year with the body changes.”
“You really come into this new identity, and it’s a transformation. It’s a shedding of certain parts. There are parts that leave so other parts can come in. Parents deserve to marinate in the in-between adjustment. That depends on a lot of factors and on how you structure that time. But however you can within the confines, don’t feel guilty about taking it day by day and hour by hour. It’s such a rich time, and we don’t give it the credit it deserves.”
“You deserve to move slowly through this time,” is Matney’s advice to moms. “You deserve to step into all the realms of body, mind, and soul.”
