Adrienne Suess (she/her)
Hello! Ever since my high school years, I have been fascinated with the labor process. My earliest memory was watching the Miracle of Birth videos in 9th grade Sex Education; as my classmates were giggling and averting their eyes, I watched with my eyes wide and probably a tear running down my cheek. Labor is raw, instinctive, primal, and to this day it continues to amaze me.
Fast forward years later when I was attending Northwestern Health Sciences University studying Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine, when I was reintroduced to the labor process, and how acupuncture can be a great tool in the labor room. I had interviewed an acupuncturist and birth doula out in California, and was deeply inspired, so I became trained as a birth doula myself in April 2017.
After graduating school and diving in to building my practice as an acupuncturist, I became interested in craniosacral therapy and how it, too, can support the ever-changing pregnant body. I completed 100 hours of CST and Dynamic Body Balancing training with Dr. Carol Philips in 2021.
After graduating school I started my own acupuncture business Stepping Stone Acupuncture, but this year I decided to rebrand and focus my business on birth doula work, while continuing to work full time as an acupuncturist and CST with an amazing team of health care providers at both SuNu Wellness locations. I am so incredibly lucky to not only be a part of such an amazing team of healers, but also with a team that truly supports my birth work.
As for my birth doula passion, I enjoy working with anyone and everyone regardless of birth vision. I have experience in home birth, birth center, as well as hospital birth. I have also been called in to births as an acupuncturist (not as the doula) because of stalled labor, and have had the opportunity to work my acupuncture and craniosacral magic to get things moving again. When trying to have an unmedicated, low intervention labor, the tools I offer are invaluable.
It would be an honor to be a part of your birth story.
Outside of work and being a birth doula, I enjoy paddle boarding and hiking in the summer, and polar plunging in Lake Harriet in the winter. I live in South Minneapolis with my kitty named...you guessed it... Ivy (Skittles).
Fast forward years later when I was attending Northwestern Health Sciences University studying Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine, when I was reintroduced to the labor process, and how acupuncture can be a great tool in the labor room. I had interviewed an acupuncturist and birth doula out in California, and was deeply inspired, so I became trained as a birth doula myself in April 2017.
After graduating school and diving in to building my practice as an acupuncturist, I became interested in craniosacral therapy and how it, too, can support the ever-changing pregnant body. I completed 100 hours of CST and Dynamic Body Balancing training with Dr. Carol Philips in 2021.
After graduating school I started my own acupuncture business Stepping Stone Acupuncture, but this year I decided to rebrand and focus my business on birth doula work, while continuing to work full time as an acupuncturist and CST with an amazing team of health care providers at both SuNu Wellness locations. I am so incredibly lucky to not only be a part of such an amazing team of healers, but also with a team that truly supports my birth work.
As for my birth doula passion, I enjoy working with anyone and everyone regardless of birth vision. I have experience in home birth, birth center, as well as hospital birth. I have also been called in to births as an acupuncturist (not as the doula) because of stalled labor, and have had the opportunity to work my acupuncture and craniosacral magic to get things moving again. When trying to have an unmedicated, low intervention labor, the tools I offer are invaluable.
It would be an honor to be a part of your birth story.
Outside of work and being a birth doula, I enjoy paddle boarding and hiking in the summer, and polar plunging in Lake Harriet in the winter. I live in South Minneapolis with my kitty named...you guessed it... Ivy (Skittles).
