Ignacia opens up with honesty and wisdom in this inspiring conversation. In our interview, she shares about her roots in Chile and how she weaves Chilean traditions into her work as a doula. We talk about her personal journey into birth work, her heartfelt advice on building your village before baby arrives, and the common challenges she sees new parents facing in the postpartum period—especially the lack of preparation that so many families encounter. This is a powerful and grounding discussion for anyone preparing for parenthood or supporting someone who is.
1. What inspired you to become a shamanic doula, and how did your journey on this unique path begin?
I became a doula not because I had a clear label for it at the beginning, but because of what I experienced after the birth of my first child. I had a beautiful and empowering birth, but it was the postpartum period that truly transformed me. Even though I had a loving partner and supportive friends, I felt incredibly lonely and isolated. I realized how invisible mothers often become after birth, how the medical system is so focused on pregnancy but neglects the sacred transition that follows.
It was during that postpartum that something shifted in me. I knew I didn’t want to keep supporting a system that doesn’t support mothers. I felt a deep call to serve to be present for other women during this rite of passage. That’s when I began my journey, studying traditional knowledge, especially from my own culture in Chile. Since then, I’ve studied with teachers from South America, the U.S., and Australia, and I continue to learn through motherhood itself, through every woman I accompany. I’m always asking: how can we make this experience not just birth, but postpartum more whole, more supported, more sacred?
2. How has your experience as a mother of three including twins—shaped who you are today?
Becoming a mother of three especially through the experience of carrying and birthing twins has completely transformed me. That pregnancy was unlike anything I had lived before, not just physically but also spiritually and emotionally. The transition from one child to three felt like a total upheaval, a kind of death and rebirth of who I thought I was.
One of the most impactful moments on this journey was giving birth to my twins via cesarean. It radically changed how I understand belly birth not just medically, but emotionally and spiritually. Whether it’s a planned or emergency procedure, I now see how deeply mothers need to be held and cared for through that experience.
This experience also made me much more committed and even radical when it comes to self-care. When you're caring for three small children, you simply can’t pour from an empty cup. I’ve learned to protect my time, to ask for support, and to prioritize my own well-being not just for myself, but for my children too.
3. Which cultural traditions from Chile have most influenced your doula practice, especially your focus on placenta remedies and bodywork?
One of the deepest influences from Chilean tradition is the way we honor the placenta. In Chile, I learned that honoring the placenta doesn’t always mean consuming it, it can also be a sacred act of returning it to the Earth. I’ve witnessed families create rituals around burying the placenta, treating it with reverence and recognizing it as something that belongs to both the land and the family.
In terms of bodywork, my Chilean teachers taught me how essential it is to care for the body in postpartum. Touch is not just therapeutic it’s a way of helping the mother return to herself, to her bones, and to her own center after birth. I also carry with me a deep connection to the land, and an understanding that our bodies are not separate from it. That connection shapes how I support healing and grounding after such a transformative passage.
4. Can you describe what a shamanic doula does, and how this approach differs from that of a traditional doula?
When I say “shamanic doula, ” I don’t mean that I am a shaman or part of a shamanic lineage. For me, it’s about how I walk with families through birth and postpartum as a rite of passage with drumming, ritual, and a deep sense of interconnectedness. Birth is not only physical, but also sacred and transformative, and “shamanic” is the word that best reflects the ritual and spiritual dimension I bring to my work.
This understanding deepened after my apprenticeship with Jane Hardwicke Collings and the School of Shamanic Womancraft. That experience helped me see that my way of working is deeply energetic, emotional, and spiritual.
I support families by gently bringing awareness to the red thread, how past experiences, ancestral memories, and emotional patterns shape the way we give birth and mother. As a doula, I weave these threads together with traditional midwifery practices, especially those rooted in South American partería. My work is grounded in presence, ritual, and reverence for the sacredness of birth.
5. What has been the greatest challenge and the greatest joy of raising twins alongside another child?
The greatest challenge has been learning to be just one human for two babies who need you often at the same time. With twins, you are constantly reminded of your limits. And when your support system is far away, it’s even more intense. You learn quickly that you have to ask for help, and that’s not always easy.
There’s also a quiet grief that comes with realizing you can’t be there for your older child in the same way anymore. You’re stretched, constantly choosing, and sometimes someone has to wait and that’s hard.
But the joy is in witnessing the growth. Watching your children love each other, grow together, and reflect back all the work you’re doing. And also witnessing your own expansion your own strength, your own capacity to hold more love than you thought possible.
6. What advice would you offer to mothers of multiples, or to those preparing for the arrival of twins?
The best advice I can give is: build your village before the babies arrive. Don’t wait. Organize postpartum care, a babysitter, someone to help you clean the house, friends who can bring food create a system of support ahead of time. If you plan to breastfeed and it’s your first time, find a lactation consultant early. But beyond all of that, make sure someone is holding you, not just the babies.
I remember one moment clearly: both babies were crying, my older son needed me, and I hadn't rested all day. I felt like I was splitting in half. That’s when it hit me I can’t do this alone. I needed to ask for help, even when it felt hard. And that was a turning point.
So many mothers try to be superwomen, but that’s not what our babies need. They need a mother who is nourished. There is no such thing as too much support. Ask for what you need, and accept it when it comes.
Also, stay open. You might have plans for how you want to birth, feed, or raise your babies but the path may change. Let the experience teach you. That’s part of the medicine too.
And most importantly: protect your mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Your babies don’t need perfection. They need you whole, present, and cared for.
7. Can you explain the role of placenta remedies in your practice?
The placenta has always held an essential place in my practice. But after experiencing twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome and preeclampsia, I came to see the placenta as something even more sacred as a kind of mother itself, the first one to hold and nourish the babies in the womb.
When I support families, I always include the placenta in the story. Birth isn’t complete until the placenta is born. I guide families in honoring it whether through rituals, burial, or remedies and when they choose remedies, I always prepare them in their home, because the placenta belongs to them.
These moments are powerful, especially when the birth was traumatic. Honoring the placenta can be a way to bring healing. And for those who choose to consume it, it can offer physical vitality. But beyond the body, the placenta also holds meaning. One tradition I learned says the baby represents the light, and the placenta the shadow. Postpartum is a shadow time and honoring the placenta is a way to walk through that shadow with reverence.
8. Do you incorporate any specific Chilean or Indigenous practices into your work? Could you share an example?
Yes, many of the practices I carry come from Indigenous and traditional midwifery lineages in Chile and Colombia. I’ve learned from teachers like Abuela Naco, Ramiro Partera, Laura Torres, Daniela Salinas, Dominique Vargas and others who’ve passed on the wisdom of partería—a way of caring for life from the first breath to the last.
These teachings shape how I hold space, how I listen, and how I honor each phase of a family’s transformation. Specific practices I use include sobadas (traditional womb massage), rebozo work, Closing of the bones o la Cerrada, and baños de vapor (vaginal steam baths) among others.
9. What are some of the most common challenges you see new mothers face, and how do you help them move through these moments?
One of the biggest challenges is that many mothers are simply not prepared for the postpartum period. They focus so much on the birth itself that they don’t plan for what comes after. They don’t realize how vital it is to build a support system, and to bring friends and community into that sacred window.
There’s also the challenge of asking for help especially in cultures where independence is prized. But motherhood invites us into vulnerability, and that’s not always easy. Postpartum also brings up emotional and ancestral layers shifts in identity, relationships, and the resurfacing of old wounds.
My role is to support mothers in preparing during pregnancy, helping them build their village and recognize what they might need. And once the baby is here, I help them return to themselves to the body, to the bones, to the sacredness of what they’re living. I don’t tell them what to do. I mirror their journey so they can witness their own transformation.
10. What guidance would you offer to expectant mothers as they prepare for childbirth and the postpartum period?
The guidance I offer is rooted in three things: information, ritual, and bodywork. I make sure mothers understand what’s happening physically and emotionally during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum so they’re not caught off guard. But I also support them through ritual, because birth is not just something that happens to the body. It’s a rite of passage, and it needs to be honored that way.
One ritual I often guide is a blessing ceremony late in pregnancy, a moment where the mother is seen, massaged, affirmed, and surrounded by love. It’s not just preparation, it's recognition. It says: you are crossing a threshold, and we are here to hold you.And then there’s bodywork, which helps ground everything in the body. Through touch breath, and presence, I help mothers connect with themselves and their babies, and bring all that transformation into the bones. We can understand things with our minds, but to truly integrate change, we need to feel it in our bodies.
This is how I support women to prepare not only to give birth, but to be transformed by it.
11. What role does spirituality play in your work, and how do you bring it into your care for mothers and babies?
Spirituality is at the core of everything I do because it’s at the core of who I am. Since a young age, I’ve seen spirit in everything: in nature, in people, in the unseen spaces between us. That view naturally flows into how I care for mothers and babies.
When I support a family, I’m not only working with the physical body, I'm holding space for the energetic, the ancestral, the emotional. I’ve come to understand that before matter, there is spirit. Before the body, there is energy. And both need to be cared for.
Pregnancy often begins in the spiritual realm through dreams, intentions, and longings. Then it moves into the body. My role is to honor all of that. To hold space for the mystery, and to listen not just with my ears, but with my whole being.
12. How do you see the role of doulas—and traditional birth practices—evolving in today’s world?
I see the role of doulas and traditional birth keepers evolving in a very positive way. More people are recognizing that birth is not just a medical event it’s a sacred, life-changing threshold. Families are starting to understand that this moment deserves to be witnessed, held, and honored.
I love that the doula world is becoming more diverse. There are doulas focused on science and advocacy, others on ritual, some rooted in bodywork or ancestral knowledge. It’s beautiful to see that there’s a doula for every family, and more space for each of us to walk our own path.
At the same time, I do feel concern around cultural appropriation. I see practices being taken out of context—rituals or techniques repeated without the depth or spirit behind them. And that can be harmful. These are not just tools, they're part of lineages, teachings, and relationships.
For me, the most powerful thing I bring is not a bag of techniques—its presence. That’s what holds everything together. A family doesn’t hire me for what I carry in my hands, but for how I see them, how I hold space, how I listen.In a world obsessed with consuming more tools, more training, more credentials, I believe we need to remember why someone chooses us in the first place. It’s not about doing more it’s about being with. That’s the deepest form of support we can offer.
13. What do you think modern medicine could learn from shamanic and traditional approaches to childbirth and postpartum care?
Modern medicine has much to learn especially when it comes to seeing people as whole, unique beings. We are not just diagnoses or statistics. We are stories, bodies, spirits, lineages.
Traditional approaches teach us to slow down. To listen. To hold space for mystery. Birth is not something to control, it's something to witness and honor. When I was pregnant with twins, I relied on modern medicine but I also saw its rigidity. Protocols often override intuition. And that’s something we can’t afford to lose.
Above all, modern medicine needs to give more time to the mother, to the process, to the unfolding. And it needs to learn to think outside the box to look beyond its own models, and learn from the traditional ways that have been guiding life into this world for generations.
14. Who inspires you in your work and in your life as a woman today?
I’m inspired by many women—my teachers, my friends, the mothers I walk beside.
Women like Abuela Naco, Laura Torres, Daniela Salinas, Ramiro, Rochelle Garcia, Jane Hardwicke Collings each of them have passed on wisdom that lives through my work. I carry their voices with me. For example, something Jane once said never left me: “There is no good or bad birth, it is a miracle, a rite of passage, a teacher that offers us the opportunity to transform” That truth continues to shape how I hold birth and postpartum today.
I’m also deeply inspired by the mothers I support and by my friends who are raising children beside me. Just witnessing their everyday strength, their softness, their resilience it keeps me going. It reminds me that we’re all part of something bigger.
And I can’t separate who inspires me from how I work. The people who have crossed me deeply, also shape the care I give. My work and my life are one thread. It’s all woven together.
15. If you could pass on one piece of ancestral wisdom about birth or motherhood, what would it be?
Birth reminds us how life truly is. When we forget how life works, birth shows us: we are not in control. There is always mystery. We can plan, but in the end, birth unfolds as it needs to offer us exactly the experience we need in order to become the mothers our children require.
There is no good or bad birth. There is only experience. And in every experience, there is medicine. Sometimes it takes time to understand that medicine but it’s always there, waiting to be honored. And motherhood it’s one of the most spiritual paths we can walk, if we choose to see it that way. It invites us to look at ourselves fully, to meet our inner child, to heal our lineages, and to receive our children as teachers. I’ve practiced yoga and meditation for years, but nothing has demanded more presence, more surrender, and more transformation than motherhood. It is my greatest teacher
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Name of the photographers
Alia Malin
Selina Reimann
