About Us

Sita Payne Romero, LMT, CD (DONA)

Sita realized her calling when she experienced the
beauty of life through her own pregnancy, labor, birth and mothering. She has a great desire to connect and communicate with mothers-to-be and new mothers on many levels, including education, support, and community. In addition to being a DONA certified birth doula, Sita is a licensed massage therapist and a certified prenatal yoga instructor.  Sita is a graduate of Southeastern School of Neuromuscular and Massage Therapy, Inc. and licensed in the state of Florida. She specializes in therapeutic prenatal and postnatal massage, labor massage and neuromuscular therapy. In addition, she has been trained in the Hypnobabies mehthod of childbirth hypnosis and certified as an Infant massage instructor.

My Journey - The long (but good) version

My path to teaching Hypnobabies came from my experiences over the years in working with mothers-to-be.  I began to first use hypnosis techniques in my yoga classes.  I found that mothers appreciated and needed the 10 minutes of sivasana (relaxation) time at the end of each yoga class.  Instead of listening to the silence or to yoga music, I began to read visualizations to my class.  Before I realized it, I was teaching deepening techniques and using hypnosis to relax my students.  Mothers would comment that they had never slept better than on the nights they attended my classes.

It wasn’t until years later that I attended my first hypno-birth as a doula.  A doula client of mine took a Bradley class and found that she needed something more than what the Bradley class was offering.  She got her hands on some Hypnobirthing (the Mongan Method) materials and began to practice hypnosis for childbirth.  I aided by offering further hypnosis tools to her and began to study on my own in preparation for her birth.  Her birth was an amazing experience not only for her, but for me as her doula, as well.  She literally did not experience pain during her labor.  She will describe her labor as “work” and she will tell you that she felt “pressure” but she did not experience pain during her birthing time.  Her hypnosis training had only scratched the surface though.  (I still worked hard during her labor, massaging her for nearly 11 hours!)

When it came time to plan for own my next birth, I wanted to learn the best of the best method that was out there and apply this to my own birthing time.  I had attended so many women, being a doula for 4 years by the time I was pregnant again.  I had seen some really great births and I had seen some not-so-great things over the years as well.  I wanted to take all of the good pieces out of every birth I had been a part of, and apply each one to my own birth.  I decided to use a midwife instead of the hospital.  I opted for a waterbirth, instead of in-bed.  I hired a doula, instead of going at it without a professional assistant.  And lastly, the first hypno-birth I attended stood out in my mind.  My husband had used hypnosis techniques in the past to keep his blood pressure down (without medication!).  He was the first to say that he wanted us to have a birth like “the client that had no pain.”

I am one to do my homework and I looked at ALL the hypnosis for childbirth programs that are out there.  After careful review…I realized that THE BEST program available is Hypnobabies.  It is so in-depth and offers a complete childbirth education course (to help moms become an informed consumer) and it teaches in-depth hypnosis techniques (not simply relaxation techniques).  However, there were no instructors in my area and my husband and I did the homestudy course together.

I ended up having the best of everything for my birth experience.  Aspen Alanna was born on August 25, 2007 into my own hands after a virtually pain-free labor, at home in the water with my amazing husband and wonderful midwife in attendance.  You can read about her birth in my husband’s own words here www.aspenalanna.com

Formal Training & Certifications

• May 2008: Hypnobabies training for Certification as a Hypnobabies Childbirth Hypnosis Instructor (HCHI)
• August 2007: Certified as an Infant Massage Instructor
• May 2006: Studied Hypnobabies Hypno-Doula Program
• January 2006: Opened Lotus in Bloom, LLC and began offering services for doula care, massage therapy and yoga instruction full-time
• February 2005: Certified as a Prenatal and Postpartum Massage Therapist in Bodywork for the Childbearing Year
• October 2004: Licensed in the State of Florida as a Massage Therapist
• August 2004: Graduated from Southeastern School of Neuromuscular and Massage Therapy, Inc.
• September 2003: Certified as a doula through DONA
• August 2003:  Attended Yoga intensive at the Asheville Yoga Center and Certified as a Prenatal and Postnatal Yoga Instructor
• May 2003: Attended my certification births for DONA
• March 2003: Attended a labor/birth doula training through the Doulas of North America (DONA) and the Childbirth and Postpartum Professionals Association (CAPPA)