Barbara Hanachova is transforming lives through gentle expert holistic care, supporting you on your journey to optimal health and wellbeing. It was during the free birth of her second daughter that she discovered the true power of a woman’s body and childbirth, and her passion for home birth, body autonomy and informed choice was sparked. With years of experience both as an independent home birth midwife as well as an NHS midwife, she went on to study homeopathy to better support families seeking more natural ways to keep healthy. Here Barbara talks to The Natural Parent Magazine about the inspiration behind what she does, how she navigates work-family balance, and the pros and cons of running her own business.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
I am a mum of four kids who have been home educated. I just wanted to be able to do the work that I love and at the same time have the time and flexibility to take my kids to various home ed activities and workshops… Basically more flexible work-life balance. I also like spending time with my clients, talking through everything they may want to know and supporting them fully in their choices. That is unfortunately not always too easy within public health care. So becoming an independent midwife and later a homeopath was kind of a natural development.
While I was studying homeopathy, we were encouraged to start building our practices while having the support of our tutors via regular supervision sessions. I thought I would work mainly with pregnant women helping them tackle the common pregnancy complaints, prepare for birth and perhaps manage postnatal and baby-related issues. However, for some reason, most of my clients were families needing support for their children with complex conditions such as autistic spectrum, ADHD, PANS/PANDAS as well as lots of children with eczema. That is how my specialist interest was sparked and now these children and their families comprise 90% of my clients.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
I started by going part-time in my job while slowly building my own practice. Over the years, I trained in various complementary therapies including Herbalism, Aromatherapy and Craniosacral Therapy to be able to support my clients as holistically as possible.
Unfortunately, the situation in health care hasn’t been very easy in the past few years with high levels of stress and staff being overworked. When I finally realised that I too am burnt out, I decided to leave. It was a hard decision because I loved my job, we had a great team and at times I still miss it. But it took me a good few months to recover. And the main thing that helped me through the tough times, apart from my husband, was homeopathy. It can have really profound results when you get the right remedy!
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
Looking back, I guess the biggest turning point in my private practice was leaving the healthcare job. Because then I simply had to make it work. We needed the second income and I could no longer rely on my regular salary. And another big breakthrough was realisation that I don’t have to be perfect. It is OK to be vulnerable and even make mistakes along the way. As long as you learn from them and improve as you go. Nobody is perfect – life would be boring if there was nothing to learn or work on.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
I actually don’t lol! I wish I could say that I have this amazing schedule and I am perfectly organised… But I really am not. I do have an online booking system with dedicated slots for my homeopathy consultations and I run a clinic locally on Wednesday mornings. Other than that, our life is very organic. We don’t have any set bedtime – my husband usually works till very late and the kids tend to like to wait for him. And in the mornings, unless we have some activity like a home ed workshop or forest school session, we just get up whenever. I tend to plan my infant feeding and midwife home visits in the mornings, simply because my husband works afternoons so one of us is always with the kids. Other than that, everything depends on the weather, what activities are on, and what the kids feel like doing…
