Orna Konig
About Me
While I started my career in the high-tech industry, I always knew that my real passion and purpose in life was to help people in a direct physical and emotional way. Since then, I became a birth and postpartum doula while studying to become a home-birth midwife (had been apprenticing with a local midwife in the Bay Area).
My Experience
My birthing experience includes hospital and home-birth environments, including successful VBACs, working with LGBT families and mothers with body image issues.
My current and past volunteer work include: paramedic at the MDA (Magen David Adom – the Israeli emergency services), Presenter for the Nourishing our Children campaign of the Weston A. Price foundation, and doula at the San Francisco General Hospital as well as at the Homeless Prenatal Project of San Francisco.
While I was born in Iran and grew up in Israel, I have been living in San Francisco for the last 20+ years, started a family and raised two sweet teenage boys, and feel that San Francisco is my true home and community.
Professional Education
DONA Birth Doula training with Debbie Lavin
Birth Doula training at Natural Resources
Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner
Spinning Babies® Parent Educator
Prenatal Yoga Teacher Training at Mama Tree
Past student midwife at NCM, apprentice with Michelle Welborn, CPM, LM.
Postpartum Doula Training at Natural Resources
Postpartum Doula Training at SF General Hospital
CPR and NRP certified.
Academic:
BA in Computer Science & Psychology from UC Berkeley, Summa Cum Laude.
Technical software engineer, Mamram school of tech. Israel
My Doula Approach
After my first several births as a doula, I would often get “I couldn’t have done it without you” greetings from my parent clients. While, at first, it sounded as the best compliment a doula can get, I quickly realized that my goal as a doula is not to have my clients feel that they were dependent on another person to succeed (not even me ;). Rather, I would like them feel empowered and know that everything that they did was their doing, their will, and their power...
I love hearing them say "I did it!"…
As a doula, I utilize my nurturing skills in combination with my scientific background. My approach is evidence-based and rooted in the belief that childbearing is a fundamentally healthy and normal part of adult life. I don’t believe there is one “right” way to birth, but I do believe that everyone deserves to be informed, supported, and respectfully cared for as they make the choices that are best for their family. I joy in sparking questions, allaying fears, exploring options, and helping my clients wade through the jargon of modern birth.
It is important to me that my clients feel safe and heard no matter what their situation or concerns might be. Birth can be a confidence-boosting, relationship-building experience that ignites a lifelong source of personal strength—and that’s what I hope to nurture from our very first meeting together. For those with partners, engagement of both parents in the birth process is central to my work. I work with partners prenatally and through labor to enhance support of their loved one and assure they feel profoundly involved in the experience. Childbirth is an incredible journey and I feel privileged and awed each day to support people as they welcome their little ones to the world.