Hi! I’m Laura, a senior lawyer, a trained doula, a birth information specialist and a mum of three living in Alexandra Park, Muswell Hill borders, North London (not far from Bounds Green and Wood Green tube stations).

In my free time, I’m a proud volunteer at Pregnancy Sickness Support (I suffered hyperemesis gravidarum throughout my third pregnancy), and AIMS. I also love netball, reading, and reminding my kids to put their shoes on (ok, that last one’s a lie).

Welcome! So happy to have you here. Whether you are looking for information about a specific pregnancy issue, want a better understanding of your rights in birth, would like a package of doula support, or need tools to help you advocate for yourself as you navigate maternity care, I would love to support you.

I aim to empower YOU to feel informed, confident and cared for at every step of your pregnancy and birth experience. I feel passionately that everyone should have access to evidence-based information and personalized, human rights centered, loving care. As as a lawyer, doula and birth information specialist, I believe I am uniquely well placed to offer you this support, and to ensure that you are listened to and have your rights respected in all of your interactions with maternity services.

So what brought me to this point? What training have I had? Am I REALLY a lawyer?

I studied Law at Cambridge, qualified as a solicitor in 2012, and spent fourteen years as a lawyer in top global law firms. I was also a knowledge professional, and created and built out the training and knowhow function for my team. Throughout this time I regularly advised on pro bono human rights matters, including related to maternity rights, obstetric violence, FGM, women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights.

As is the case for so many of us, having my own children transformed my outlook on the world. It was no longer enough to be doing human rights work alongside my other matters. I wanted to do more. Specifically, having seen how commonly women’s rights in pregnancy and childbirth seemed to be forgotten about, I knew that what I really wanted to do was to share my legal knowledge, and advocacy toolkit, to enable women to feel confident standing up for themselves during this life-changing time (and to provide advocacy support if wanted). Furthermore, as a knowledge professional, I was often appalled at the lack of information women were given before being asked to make very important decisions about their care. I knew I wanted to help people access unbiased, up to date, evidence-based information to assist their informed decision-making.

Simultaneously, I wanted to offer women the love and support that we all need during the transformational time of pregnancy and new motherhood (whether becoming mothers for a first or subsequent time, as each child brings a new dynamic), which made becoming a doula a natural fit. Furthermore, it was an evidence based choice - studies have shown multiple benefits of having a doula, including that their presence reduces the need for pain relief, shortens labour, reduces rates of induction, instrumental birth and caesarean birth, and increases parental satisfaction with the birth experience.

And so, I crafted my unique combined offering: