Hi! I am Leah Platter, CD(DONA), and I am a DONA International certified birth doula living on beautiful Lopez Island.

My life is primarily dedicated these days to caring for my daughters, Hannah (age 5) and Rosalie (age 1). I like to sing jazz, go for nature walks, and listen to podcasts and audio books. I am a caring, nurturing, gracious, and positive person, and am so happy to have found my heart’s calling in my role as a birth doula.

Because of my fascination with the human body and how it works, I studied kinesiology at WWU in Bellingham, WA. I especially loved my anatomy, physiology, biology, psychology, and movement studies classes. I ran on the cross-country team, was an avid skier and hiker, and ran a few half-marathons.

When I graduated with my bachelor’s degree in science, I found a job in healthcare administration and worked my way up into a management position over the course of the next four years. I liked working in healthcare, but knew that my true calling was birth work, so in November of 2014 I finally went with my gut instinct and enrolled myself in the Birth Doula Skills Workshop offered through the Simkin Center at Bastyr University. I resigned from my healthcare administration job with the hope that doing so would allow me the flexibility to focus on completing the requirements for certification through DONA International while being on-call for doula clients, and doing so turned out to be one of the best, life-changing decisions I have ever made. The very next week my first birth doula client found me, and soon after that, my husband and I were delighted to find out that we were expecting a baby of our own!

While I was pregnant I was able to complete the Birth Doula Skills Workshop and support my first two birth doula clients, and then took three months off after the birth of my sweet baby Hannah. During our pregnancy and birth journey, my husband and I really appreciated the incredibly helpful support of our own birth doula and HypnoBabies instructor, Kathleen.

Since 2014, I’ve had the privilege of supporting a variety of pregnancy and birth experiences, such as natural birth, VBAC, birth with an epidural, hospital birth, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia,  GBS+ moms, birth augmented with Pitocin, birth center births, and inductions. I’ve also had two homebirths myself and am happy to provide insight to families who are interested in learning more about home birth, water birth, hypnosis for childbirth (HypnoBabies), breastfeeding, cloth diapering, and baby-wearing.

I love that my role as a doula is to be a support person and advocate. It’s such beautiful, meaningful and rewarding work, and I hope to continue supporting people as they welcome new life into this world until I’m old and gray (and hopefully even after that).

I would love to connect with you if you are seeking a doula in San Juan County to enrich your birthing experience!

Birth Blessings,

Doula Leah