August 15: The Postpartum Plan: herbal education, comfort food and community care for doulas and birth workers // virtual workshop

Herbal education, comfort food and community care will be held Saturday, August 15th at 6:30pm EST / 3:30pm PST

In this workshop, Mar will incorporate herbal education, comfort food, and community-centered care to explore supportive approaches to the postpartum journey. This class will consider how herbs can be understood and discussed through accessible forms such as teas, baths, oils, compresses, broths, and culturally familiar nourishing foods, while also honoring rest, nervous system care, consent, cultural humility, ancestral knowledge, referral, and scope of practice.

Participants will be invited to reflect on postpartum as a season of physical healing, emotional transition, nervous system adjustment, and community-supported care. This workshop honors the long-standing use of herbs and food-based care in postpartum traditions, while also emphasizing safety, discernment, and the importance of knowing when to refer. The class is intended to support doulas and birth workers in sharing general herbal education and comfort-based care without diagnosing, treating, prescribing, or replacing clinical guidance.

Workshop goals include:

• Explore postpartum as a season of physical healing, emotional transition, nervous system adjustment, and community-supported care.
• Discuss herbal education as a tool for deepening postpartum support, while staying rooted in doula scope of practice and informed referral.
• Identify ways herbs may be traditionally and practically incorporated into postpartum care through teas, baths, oils, compresses, broths, and food-based preparations.
• Consider comfort food as a form of nourishment, cultural memory, ancestral care, and practical support for postpartum families.
• Honor the truth that herbs have long-standing uses in postpartum care, while also recognizing that herbs require safety, discernment, consent, and respect.
• Reflect on safety considerations, including allergies, medication interactions, lactation, contraindications, postpartum complications, and client preferences.
• Strengthen understanding of how to know when herbal support, comfort measures, or doula care are not enough, and when to refer to a clinical provider, trained herbalist, lactation professional, mental health provider, or emergency care.
• Clarify how doulas and birth workers can share general herbal education and support informed decision-making without diagnosing, treating, prescribing, or replacing clinical guidance.
• Explore how ancestral and culturally rooted postpartum practices can be honored without appropriation, assumption, or overstepping.
• Consider how doulas and birth workers can help families build community care plans that support rest, nourishment, recovery, and wellbeing.

This workshop will be led by Mar Jones

Mars “Mar” Jones is a community-rooted practitioner and educator whose work weaves together birth work, bodywork, herbal education, harm reduction, and public health. Mar is deeply committed to ancestral knowledge, embodied care, and accessible learning. Their teaching creates space for people to build practical skills, deepen their relationship with plants and the body, and honor the wisdom already present within their communities. Their work centers safety, consent, community care, and the belief that healing practices are most powerful when shared with responsibility, respect, and connection.