We had the good fortune of connecting with Rachael Hutchins and Hannah Atterberry and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rachael and Hannah, career-wise, where do you want to be in the end?

We have some really big plans! We hope to grow North Atlanta Birth Services, so we can serve more people in our area, and grow our local birth community. We currently mentor new doulas, and we hope to grow and develop this mentorship program over the years. Doulas need community and support. We both felt a little lost after our training, and we want to help new doulas feel confident and help teach them how to run a successful business.
We hope to see some major shifts in the level of care birthing people receive. We hope to see more collaboration between home birth and hospital birth providers. We hope birthing people will have a more powerful voice in the hospital setting, and that more providers will use shared decision making and more evidence based information.
We see ourselves working alongside other doulas in an agency model of care. We believe if we can support other doulas then we can help more people in our area for a longer time. We look forward to the opportunity to grow our business and reach more families during this super special time in their life.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?

We are a duo of childbirth professionals providing individualized, holistic, and evidence based support. We offer a range of services for pregnant and newly postpartum folks. Together we work with families throughout their pregnancy, labor, and their postpartum experience. We provide education, informational and physical support, local resources, and years of experience. Rachael is a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator, and teaches an online, self-paced childbirth education course. It’s packed with info, and she has a great online support group! Hannah is a postpartum doula who helps prepare families prenatally with postpartum planning calls and newborn education. Together we support families throughout their pregnancy, labor and postpartum journey. Our clients gain the knowledge and experience of two doulas throughout their entire childbearing experience. This allows them two different perspectives, two different skill sets, two different backgrounds, and unwavering support from the both of us without delay in support.

We pride ourselves on giving our clients evidence based information and individualized support from day one. We love to build deep connections with our clients to build trust and encourage them to own their birth. Our deepest desires are that our clients feel empowered during this process, and they can make decisions that they are confident in. We do not believe there is a right or wrong way to birth, and we help our clients explore the options that work best for them.

It was quite the journey to make North Atlanta Birth Services. We had both been working as solo doulas for many years, and we noticed that it wasn’t working for us. We weren’t able to serve our clients in the way we wanted, and we knew the 24/7 “on call” lifestyle wasn’t sustainable with our families. Through many conversations, and lots of thinking, an idea was born and nurtured, until it was ready to come to fruition. Where we are now is amazing. Not only are we able to reach more people locally, but we are able to mentor new doulas, and we are nourishing our fellow birth professionals. We both feel truly honored to be doing this work together.

It’s never easy to take a leap of faith as we did, but we couldn’t be more pleased with what we are experiencing now. We look forward to what the future holds. It’s unknown, and oh so exciting!

We’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way, but most importantly we have learned to lean into a community for support, and we have worked very hard for a healthy work-life balance that serves both our families and our clients. When you can learn to fill your cup, you can continue to fill other’s for many many years.


Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
There are so many great places in and around the city to visit. We of course want to support local businesses! If you are out of the city, you should check out Downtown Woodstock. Between Reformation Brewery, the local farmers market, and concerts its a great place to go! Plus the local book store, Foxtale Bookstore, has character readings once a month, and you can’t miss those. We also have some wonderful parks like Olde Ropemill Park and Blankets Creek. You can find outdoor adventure all around in Cherokee County.

In the city we love the Porter Beer Bar, and Piedmont park. The food at the Porter is great, and their beer selection is plentiful. Piedmont park has super fun events, and the view of the skyline is wonderful.

The Eastern and The Coca Cola Roxy are great venues for music, and the book great acts all the time. Definitely check out their offerings.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
There are many people we could thank that lead us to this point in our careers, but Dr. Shannon O’Brien of Sunrise Chiropractic and Wellness is who introduced us. She is an incredible chiropractor, and we wouldn’t be successful partners today if she hadn’t encouraged us to meet.

Website: www.northatlantabirth.com

Instagram: @northatlantabirth

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/northatlantabirth

Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/aligned-birth/id1567240178

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