Offering birth education, hypnobirthing classes and postpartum doula support, Danika Armstrong’s goal is to help women to birth safely and comfortably and enjoy and embrace the postpartum period with their precious babies. Here she talks about her inspiration behind starting Mama Vibe with Danika Armstrong and the importance of support during the journey through pregnancy into motherhood and beyond.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
I always wanted to run my own business because who could be a better boss than me? I tried a few things, including making boys’ clothes, but they were just distracting me from my true passion: helping women birth safely and comfortably. My own birth experience as a HypnoBirthing® mama was so different from that of my friends that I wanted to do something to change that.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
I started very slowly. I was working part time as a travel agent, was a full-time mama to a 3-year-old, had a recent diagnosis of high grade abnormalities in a pap smear and was hoping to have another baby, so my start had to be very gradual. I did this as a hobby business for a couple of years before stepping into it this year as my only paid work. The gradual start has helped me learn lots of things with the safety net of my other job to prepare me to be a small business owner. I don’t think when my maternity leave is over that there will be a travel agent position for me, which is very exciting to have that safety net removed and having to make this successful.
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
There have been so many. I had lots of money blocks around work and parenting, my worth and my ability to work at home with a young family. I have done EFT and continue to practise it to help clear things that come up – currently working on my love of being a stay-at-home parent and having to give up some of that time to work in the business. I think for women in business, that we have so much cultural conditioning about our role as nurturer and carer that finding ourselves wanting to carve our own path and do something for ourselves seems inherently selfish and we have to work to get over that.
