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Tina Bitangcol spends her days doing what she loves: when the Edmonton lady just isn’t working as a registered nurse in labour and supply, she’s sharing her ardour for all issues pre- and post-partum to thousands and thousands of followers on-line because the comedic, enlightening Mama Nurse Tina.
“What I have become really passionate about is educating and teaching people how to advocate and decrease birth trauma and have a more knowledgeable, positive birth experience,” the mom of 4 mentioned.
“I love talking about it — I could talk about it all day.”
She didn’t intend to turn into a effectively of knowledge, however by probability and within the trenches of motherhood, Bitangcol found there was an urge for food for evidence-based being pregnant and childrearing recommendation.
“I actually started with mom comedy and then I put up, I think, one video about labour and delivery and childbirth — and it went pretty big.”
Edmonton nurse Tina Bitangcol making an academic labour and supply video for her social media accounts “Mama Nurse Tina.”
Supplied by Tina Bitangcol
It was her lightbulb second.
“There’s this huge need for information in this day and age. And I was like, ‘You have the information. You have a really fun way to deliver it. People seem to really relate to it.’
“I just sort of ran with it.”
That was in 2022.
Bitangcol began on TikTook, earlier than including accounts on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube — the latter of which she mentioned is her favorite.
“It’s an incredible platform for sort of longform, really, really good information for people to grab on to and watch through and have that to prepare for their birth.”
Mama Nurse Tina just isn’t about euphemisms or flowery “what to expect when you’re expecting” language, as Bitangcol calls it.
She’s trustworthy, blunt, and humorous.
“For me, that ‘what to expect,’ that flowery stuff, when I was pregnant — I’ve been pregnant four times — was kind of a snoozefest for me,” she mentioned. “I really enjoy adding the comedy in there, to allow more people to relate to it and utilize that information to have an empowered birth.”
Mama Nurse Tina tells ladies they are going to poop themselves throughout supply (“You don’t need to apologize. This happens all the time!“) and that they do not need to worry about looking put together.
“It is not a beauty contest. If you come in and your legs are not shaved, your toenails are not perfectly manicured and your woohoo is not trimmed into a perfect do — girl! Me neither and I am not nine months pregnant!” she tells followers in one in every of her movies.
Edmonton nurse Tina Bitangcol making an academic labour and supply video for her social media accounts “Mama Nurse Tina.”
Supplied by Tina Bitangcol
It’s the relatable, no-nonsense, tongue-in-cheek humour that Bitangcol mentioned many parents-to-be are searching for as they embark on a life-changing journey nobody can really perceive till they’re in it.
“Pregnancy and labour is scary for a lot of people. If you haven’t done it, you haven’t been around it, it can be really scary,” she mentioned.
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She mentioned bringing a little bit of humour into the state of affairs will help folks relate and digest the knowledge they’re searching for.
“They feel comfortable listening to it as opposed to being like, ‘Oh my God, what am I learning about?’ So that’s why I put the comedy in there. And also — that’s my personality.”
It’s clearly working. Her Mama Nurse Tina accounts have a big following: 513,000 on TikTook, 360,000 on Facebook, 352,000 on YouTube, and 245,000 on Instagram. Combined, it’s over 1.5 million subscribers.
As is the case with all content material creators in Canada, she doesn’t obtain any cash from TikTook (Canadians are ineligible for the platform’s profitable creator fund that pays out folks in locations just like the United States.) She mentioned she additionally doesn’t get cash from Instagram.
“So you’re basically just giving your time and your effort without any financial gains. Once you’re able to sort of create partnerships with brands, then you’re able to bring in money that way. But for views itself, it’s a non-paid gig.
“It’s just a labour of love.”
She does, nonetheless, earn cash from views off YouTube and Facebook.
Bitangcol began nursing 17 years in the past within the emergency room — the place her doctor husband nonetheless works — earlier than transitioning over to labour and supply.
She went to an informal schedule as soon as their youngsters arrived, explaining with youngster care and her husband’s shift work, selecting up shifts right here and there was the most effective transfer for his or her household life.
It now additionally offers Bitangcol time to create content material for Mama Nurse Tina — a gig she says is extra financially profitable than nursing ever could possibly be.
She uploads a video every day, and mentioned there was a studying curve to find out what labored and what didn’t.
“I discovered that our consideration spans are so, so brief that you simply actually should seize any person in these first few seconds to truly have them interact with the video.
“Your video could be amazing (but) if you don’t grab them in that first little bit, they’re just going to scroll on to the next.”
For Bitangcol, creating partaking content material begins with good high quality lighting and sound, plus an aesthetic persons are drawn to. That mentioned, she information most of her content material in a nook underneath her basement stairs.
“I think anybody can do it, if you have your own personality and your own shtick and you have a little bit of space — my studio is teeny tiny,” she mentioned.
“If you have something to say and you can say it with your whole chest, then get out there and do it.”
Edmonton nurse Tina Bitangcol’s basement studio the place she information a few of the academic labour and supply movies posted to her social media accounts “Mama Nurse Tina.”
Supplied by Tina Bitangcol
So what are her viewers most considering?
“A lot of videos that I do about birth trauma usually go fairly viral and I put a lot of effort into those videos because they’re super important to me. I think it’s really important to talk about those things.”
Other matters her viewers relate to vary from methods to go to the washroom after having a child — a course of involving peri bottles, mesh underwear, ice packs and in a single day pads, witch hazel wipes and numbing sprays or lotions — to easily methods to change a child’s diaper.
“People are eating that up and you think this is common knowledge, but it’s really not.
“Unless you’ve done it — and that’s the same with anything in childbirth — unless you’ve done that thing before, it’s a completely new area for people.”
Her greatest demographic, not surprisingly, is ladies aged 18 to 44. Bitangcol mentioned she often will get acknowledged when out and about within the Edmonton space.
“It’s been the wildest ride,” she laughed. “I’ll run into people and they’ll be like, ‘Do I know you?’ And I’ll be like, ‘Are you pregnant? Did you just have a baby?’ And they’ll be like, ‘Oh yeah!’”
Her greatest recommendation for first-time dad and mom: do your analysis and be ready. Read the books, watch movies like hers, decide the brains of fellow dad and mom, and the most important of all, take pre-natal programs.
“It’s really beneficial to give you that foundation of understanding as to what’s happening in your body,” she mentioned.
“Surround yourself with really positive people who are there to support you — not just to watch you have a baby — and then just take information in about positive experiences.”
Edmonton nurse Tina Bitangcol making an academic labour and supply video for her social media accounts “Mama Nurse Tina.”
Supplied by Tina Bitangcol
Beyond educating others, Bitangcol mentioned she’s made a few of her greatest friendships by being a parenting content material creator.
“I’ve met like-minded women who are passionate, who love what they do as well, who are out there to genuinely help people have a better birthing experience.”
She now works full-time as a content material creator however Bitangcol mentioned nursing continues to be her important ardour. Plus, she feels with a purpose to preserve credibility together with her viewers, she must be an lively, working health-care skilled — even when solely on an informal foundation proper now resulting from her household’s hectic schedule.
“To feel like it really matters, I want to be able to say I am a bedside nurse,” she mentioned. “I don’t think I would ever give that up completely.”
Beyond the every day movies, Bitangcol does public talking about start trauma, has launched an internet site and is placing collectively two programs on breastfeeding and pre-natal training.
“I have a lot of passion projects and it’s really cool to have the time in my life to explore them.
“I am super grateful. I feel super blessed.”
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