A Growing Trend

Normally when you think about pregnancy, labor and birth the last thing that comes to your mind is keeping your placenta, let alone taking it home. Some women, after they deliver, might get lucky and their doctor might show them the placenta before it gets taken away by one of the nurses. The placenta is an amazing organ, created by you for your baby, only needed during pregnancy. It is your baby’s life line and it literally connects you to your baby through the umbilical cord.

A Blog About Why You Need A Doula

My good friend wrote this blog about her birth and about having a doula and I thought I would share it to everyone.

ENJOY! :)

{pssssst … the picture is the link to the blog}

Where Do I Go From Here?

I want to preface this blog post as such:

This is NOT a blaming post. I am not pointing fingers at anyone, I am not trying to make anyone feel guilty. No names will be mentioned and what YOU assume is not going to be pinned on me. I want everyone to know that I am a human being with thoughts, feelings and I want others to know that what they do, actually does in fact affect more then they think.

Can I Really Change?

After spending some time with my parents and my in-laws, I realized WHY I was gravitating towards that model. My father is a retired EMT/Paramedic/Firefighter and my mother-in-law is a nurse.  I was talking to them about their views of the medical system and of pregnancy and birth and most of them aligned with the Heroic model. It scares me to think that I have grown up with this model of thinking and have had my two births with this mind frame. Birth is seen as traumatic, the healer (a.k.a. doctors) is a savior, and death and disease are results of being unclean or breaking rules. I wanted to think that I was more open minded, that I accepted all forms of thoughts and feelings, but that was just a cover up for my inability to accept what has been pounded into me; denial. Trust doctors, don’t ask questions and rely that they have your best interest in mind. That is extremely naïve thinking, I am now realizing as I mature and realize it is OK to have my own thoughts and opinions, separate from family, friends, society even.

Sharing my fears with the world

I started working on my Birth Arts International Postpartum Doula course this morning. I knew this course was going to take some effort, for me to dig deep down inside of me and pull from a resource and strength that I might not know I have.

Anyways, I want to share with you the thoughts, feelings and fears that came out of me this morning as I really sat down to discover the source of my passion.

You do what? With what?

I am very excited to announce that I am now a Placenta Encapsulation Specialist, trained through Placenta Benefits.info. I am proud of this accomplishment and am excited to share this new love and all the knowledge I have aqquirered and am ready to soak up as much as I can about this topic.

Third Stage of Labour – Benefits of A Natural Approach

By Dr Sarah J Buckley
(c) 2005 www.sarahjbuckley.com

Labour doesn’t end with the birth of your baby, but the third stage, or, the birth of the placenta. The management of this stage of labour has more importance than you might think and is definitely something to look into for both you and your baby.

The medical approach to pregnancy and birth has become so ingrained in our culture, that we have forgotten the way of birth of our ancestors: a way that has ensured our survival as a species for millennia. In the rush to supposedly protect mothers and babies from misfortune and death, modern western obstetrics has neglected to pay its dues to to Mother Nature, whose complex and elegant systems of birth are interfered with on every level by this new approach, even as we admit our inability to understand or control these elemental forces.

The Difference Between a Doula and a Midwife

Many people have asked me, “So you’re like a midwife then, right?” or “So if I have you then I will not need to have a doctor or midwife?”