Becoming a Doula or a Lactation Consultant

K.,

Doulas in the Austin area are fairly in demand. One place to start is to contact the Central Texas Doula Association and perhaps go to one of their meetings. Some of them can probably address your questions. www.centxdoulas.org

There is a doula training in San Antonio at the end of April. You can find contact info here: http://www.dona.org/workshops/

The hardest part about being a doula with small children is the childcare (especially when the care needs to start in the middle of the night). I became a doula when my children were a bit older and my husband was not usually on the road.

Someone said lactation consultants need to be nurses, and I'm not sure that is accurate. As someone else said, it is MUCH easier to have access to breastfeeding mothers if you are a hospital-based nurse. Texas Dept. of Health offers some breastfeeding courses for anyone, but they are typically weekday courses.

Best wishes.

You don't actually need to be a nurse to be a lactation consultant, however, to sit for the IBCLC exam, you need a lot of hours working with breastfeeding moms and it's hard to get those hours if you are not a nurse.
If you want to become a doula, there are numerous certifying organizations. DONA is the best known and most reputable, I would go that route. Find out what doulas in your area charge and how many births a month they usually do. It is a big commitment. I was a childbirth educator for many years and a postpartum doula for a few years, but never a birth doula. I never wanted to make that time commitment - never wanted the phone call after 2 hours of sleep to drive to a job, or have to leave in the middle of my kid's school concert or birthday party (yes, doula's have to do that!) or miss Thanksgiving dinner. Usually doulas charge several hundred dollars per birth or even $1,000 in big cities.

I don't know details about either profession aside from my brief encounters.

But I do have a lot of experience with an on-call job, similar to a doula. I did it and hated it. I would be on call nights and weekends. You can never have a plan, take a peaceful shower, or even not worry about finishing a meal. I did it before I had kids but now it would be impossible. Currently my on call work is during the day only once a month and I still despise that day. And I find my work rewarding but it still is inconvenience.

In order to become a lactation consultant you have to first become a nurse. You can become a breastfeeding consultant with a little less school, and the pay is less. I would contact the la leche league and and ask for references.