Barbara Hanahova transforms lives through gentle holistic expert care, supporting you on your journey to optimal health and wellness. 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 ignited. With years of experience as both an independent homebirth midwife and an NHS midwife, she continued her studies in homeopathy to better support families looking for 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 create your business?
I am a mother of four homeschooled children. I just wanted to be able to do the work I love and at the same time have the time and flexibility to take my kids to different activities and workshops at home… Basically more flexible work life balance. I also enjoy spending time with my clients, talking about everything they might want to know and fully supporting them in their choices. This is unfortunately not always very easy in public healthcare. So becoming an independent midwife and later a homeopath was somewhat of a natural progression.
While I was studying homeopathy, we were encouraged to start building our practices while having the support of our teachers through regular supervision sessions. I thought I would work primarily with pregnant women to help them deal with common pregnancy complaints, prepare for childbirth, and perhaps manage birth and baby-related issues. However, for some reason, most of my clients were families who needed support for their children with complex conditions such as Autism Spectrum, ADHD, PANS/PANDAS as well as many children with eczema. This sparked my specialized interest and now these children and their families make up 90% of my clients.
The launch: How did you get started in the first place?
I started by going part-time to my job while slowly building my own practice. Over the years, I have trained in various complementary therapies including herbalism, aromatherapy, and craniosacral healing to be able to support my clients as holistically as possible.
Unfortunately, the situation in healthcare has not been very easy in recent years with high levels of stress and overworked staff. When I finally realized that I was burned out too, I decided to leave. It was a hard decision because I loved my job, we had a great team and sometimes I still miss it. But it took me several months to recover. And the main thing that helped me in difficult times, besides my husband, was homeopathy. It can have really profound results when you get the right treatment!
Innovation: What has been 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 just had to make it work. We needed the second income and I could no longer rely on my regular salary. And another great discovery was the realization that I don’t have to be perfect. It’s okay to be vulnerable and even make mistakes along the way. Just learn from them and improve as you go. No one 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’m really not laughing! I wish I could say I have this amazing schedule and am perfectly organized… But I really am not. I have an online booking system with dedicated slots for my homeopathic visits and run a clinic locally on Wednesday mornings. Other than that, our lives are very organic. We don’t have a set bedtime – my husband usually works very late and the kids want to wait for him. And in the mornings, unless we have an activity like a workshop at home or a forest school session, we just get up whenever. I tend to schedule my infant feedings 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, it all depends on the weather, the activities and what the kids want to do…
