About - Doulatalks

My name is Liat Salomon, and I have been a doula since 2010. At first I was going to write “I’m working as a doula”, but honestly, I believe that being a doula is more than just a job title — it becomes who you are, or at least it did for me.

Growing up I knew exactly what I was going to be: a psychologist. There was no question about it! I hold a B.A. in Psychology but as it happens sometimes, life got in the way, and I ended up becoming….a journalist! I hold another B.A. in Communications, and I worked as a news editor and researcher, which I loved.

And then life “happened” again 🙂

Welcome!

I was still working in television when I had my second child, my daughter Tamar, younger sister to Itai. My previous birth experience was just amazing. It wasn’t easy, but after my son was born, I felt incredible. The second birth was nothing like that. Though it was a lot easier physically, I was a total wreck when it was done. I remember crying during labor and feeling unsafe, afraid and anxious. When I finally had time to think about what was so different, I realized that during the second birth, I kept looking for Valerie.

Valerie was a midwife who had the hands and heart of a doula — she didn’t just give “midwifery” support but acted as, what I later learned, my doula. Realizing how big of a role Valerie had been for me in the delivery room blew my mind. I could not stop thinking about it.

A couple of years later, I decided that this was what I desired – I wanted to be Valerie. When it was time to give birth to my youngest daughter, Alma, I was a doula myself (but also had a doula to support me).

I trained with the best doula I know, Gila Ronel, and I feel that the combination of everything she taught me with my own experience over the years have made me what I would call a practical doula.
My belief in women’s ability to give birth naturally is real, and I love and support it because I see it as a practical choice. Studies show that a natural vaginal birth is usually healthier for both mother and baby, recovery is usually easier and shorter, nursing is easier, and there is less postpartum depression. Because I believe it is a choice, I understand and accept it when women make different ones.

As time went by I added more and more tools to my doula bag. I was certified in KG Hypnobirthing, Spinning Babies, and Dancing for Birth — wonderful tools that help me as I help my clients during birth.

Over the years I have assisted in many different births and have a wide range of experiences, from extremely complicated births, many VBACs, and supporting women with previous different kinds of trauma, to average and easy births.

In 2019 I moved with my family to the San Francisco Bay Area (Silicon Valley), where I especially love the diversity of the people I get to work with. I’ve had couples from almost every country in the world, right here in California!

This website is intended to help navigate through all the overflowing (and not always accurate) information out there about late-stage pregnancy and birth. I hope you will find it helpful.

If you want to read more about what it means to be a doula, check out my article “I’m a doula: this is what a doula does“.