Sonia Thompson, founder of The Elevated Mother, is redefining post-partum care in Birmingham and beyond. As a mother of five, Reiki and womb healing practitioner and certified post-partum doula, Sonia brings a deeply holistic approach to supporting new mothers during one of the most transformative times of their lives. Drawing from over two decades of motherhood and a calling to nurture others, she has built a business that blends ancient wisdom with modern understanding. Through The Elevated Mother, she holds space for women to heal, rest and reconnect with themselves as they step into motherhood with confidence and calm. Here she talks to The Natural Parent Magazine about the inspiration behind what she does, the challenges she has overcome, and her hopes and dreams for the future.
The Passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
For the past three years, I felt a calling towards doula work – specifically post-partum. Being able to hold space and nurture the new mother is my area of expertise. I have a background in Reiki healing – in particular holistic womb healing plus healing and transformation coaching – and I feel these are all connected to my doula work and have enhanced my passion for it.
Being an experienced mother to five, with my oldest child being 24 and my youngest one year, I have first-hand experience and knowledge as to what is specifically beneficial and most effective for post-partum care, for both mother and baby with old and new school knowledge. Having experienced my first post-partum in 2001 and my fifth in 2024, I have seen lots of changes in infant care, midwifery support, baby products and birth recovery, and I am so deeply committed to sharing all of this with every mother I work with, while enabling her to feel fully held, nurtured and confident in her parenting abilities. Becoming a mother, especially for the first time, can be both beautiful and overwhelming all at the same time.
Having done some local research, I know that there is a huge gap in post-partum care across the country, specifically in Birmingham and surrounding areas. One change that has been made is that now rather than a midwife coming out to see you for your 10-14 day checks, mothers are required to travel to a clinic. When I had my first child, they came to visit the mother in her home. Being at such an early stage post-partum and having to travel out of the home can be daunting, overwhelming and, I found, extremely inconvenient whilst in the depths of sleep deprivation and pain from giving birth.
After also carrying out some market research, around 90 percent of the mothers I asked felt they would have benefitted from post-partum doula support after having their baby, with a couple of responses being “If I had known you existed, I would have definitely hired you”. This speaks to me on many levels. Feeling the missing support for new mothers is something that lies heavy in my heart. It motivates me every day to share my services as much as possible and continue doing this work for as long as I can.
The Elevated Mother is more than a business to me; it is one of my soul’s purposes. I am truly honoured to do this work and I hold great reverence for every mother I work with.
The Launch: How did you start out?
I launched The Elevated Mother in July of this year and set it up by creating my website, registering with HMRC and opening for trade. Previous to this, I completed my post-partum doula training in 2023 whilst on maternity leave (wait, how did I do that with four children and a baby?).
Since I set up, I have reached out to many local business owners and organisations that work with my ideal client – such as pregnancy yoga instructors, independent midwives, antenatal class teachers, hypnobirthing instructors and baby boutiques – asking about possible collaboration and referral pathway exchange. I have set up networking opportunities with a few of them where I am going to do a presentation about me and my services and also leave my flyers at their place of business. So at the moment, I am in a building and marketing stage, which feels very exciting and motivating.
The Innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you in your business?
The biggest breakthrough for me so far has been understanding my niche and ideal client on a deeper level. I reached out to another local business owner (a pregnancy and post-partum yoga instructor), about collaborating together and she kindly asked her large community group of pregnant and post-partum mothers who live in the areas I serve whether they would be willing to hire my services at the rates I was charging. The response was that 80 percent of them felt that my prices were too high. I took this on board and upon reflection, I have since lowered my prices to ensure that I am able to support a wider range of post-partum mothers.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
Within my 24 years of mothering experience, the most PROFOUND thing I have learnt is the value of taking time for self and truly understanding why, when a plane is going down, you place the oxygen mask on yourself first and then your child. You cannot pour from an empty cup, so I lead with this knowledge when planning out my diary, ensuring I am able to take time every day for me, doing something that allows me to completely switch off from work, mothering, wifeing and everything in between. I treat this time as sacred, as through doing this, my cup can be filled. More importantly, it allows me to show up as my greatest version for my clients, children, husband and most importantly, myself. With that being said, there are many (maybe four days) where I feel extremely overwhelmed and overstimulated. Having a five and one-year-old and my other three children, my household can be very loud, which motivates me to protect my ‘me’ time even more.
As well as taking my time out, I also use a diary for organisation, lean on my husband and older children for childcare when necessary and set a boundary of not checking my phone after 8pm. All of these things combined allow me to maintain the balance as much as possible.