Erica Paulson: Surprising Parallels Between Giving Birth and Building a Business

In this conversation, Erica Paulson, doula, childbirth educator, clinical hypnotherapist, and founder of Nurture, shares how her own birth experience led her to a career supporting women and families through pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum care. She explains how Nurture grew from doula services into a perinatal wellness center offering childbirth education, elective ultrasounds, massage therapy, and other forms of support. Erica also discusses building the business with her husband, managing the fear and uncertainty that come with entrepreneurship, and learning to trust her vision through periods of change. Looking ahead, she plans to expand access to doula-informed care by training doulas, families, nurses, and hospital providers while helping healthcare systems integrate doulas more fully into maternity care. Takeaways • Doulas provide physical, emotional, and informational support before, during, and after childbirth. • Erica became a doula after experiencing firsthand how much the right support could improve a birth experience. • Nurture was built around the idea of providing a full circle of support throughout pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. • Mind-body awareness plays an important role in Erica's approach to childbirth education and hypnotherapy. • Growing demand led Erica from working as an individual doula to training doulas and building a larger care team. • Erica and her husband bring different strengths to the business, with Erica driving the vision and her husband helping with execution and operations. • One of Erica's most important lessons in entrepreneurship was to commit to the business without relying on a plan B. • She believes fear and stress did little to improve her decisions during the early stages of building a brick-and-mortar business. • Connecting with other entrepreneurs and avoiding comparison helped Erica manage the isolation and pressure of business ownership. • Erica's long-term goal is to make doula-informed care more common within hospitals through education, training, policies, and integrated care programs. Today's guest, Erica Paulson, can be found at: Website: https://www.welcometonurture.com/ LinkedIn:   / erica-manto-paulson   Your host, Scott Turman, can be found online at: Website: https://scottturman.com/, https://brightray.com/ LinkedIn:   / scottturman   IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm14602682/ Keywords Doula, childbirth, pregnancy, postpartum, perinatal wellness, birth support, childbirth education, maternal care, hypnotherapy, mind-body connection, entrepreneurship, brick-and-mortar business, business ownership, doula training, hospital care