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Coronavirus and Your Pregnancy
Updated 5/02/2020 There have been some very reassuring changes in the past week. With any problem, knowledge can empower even with viruses such as COVID-19, the newest Coronavirus. Doulas are now back as your second support person at Vanderbilt. Some hospitals that continued with doula support have lifted some of the restrictions surrounding that support. Doulas are allowed to leave the birthing room during your labor. Mothers-to-be have many things to be concerned about without coronavirus. With knowledge and planning, you can be empowered to have your best supported birth experience possible. This blog post plans to keep you up-to-date on local hospital and birth center policies. We also discuss…
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Postpartum Doula: A day in the Life
Have you ever wondered what it would look like to have a postpartum doula? You may be surprised! It looks different for every family because every family is uniquely different! A postpartum doula has been trained and read stacks of books, but her intuition is one of her greatest assets. She does not bring her own agenda. Her job is to help the family transition after birth from surviving to managing to on its way to thriving. How might a postpartum doula’s day look? With The Seasoned Mama: “Julie” just gave birth to her 4th child. She is an experienced mom, but wonders about meeting the needs of her 3…
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Power Imbalance in Labor: Allowed vs Supported, Remember the Mother
How does an imbalance of power in labor happen? It is pretty common in the birth world for women to ask if their care provider will “allow” them preferences. A few examples are: Will I be allowed: movement during labor and pushing to wait on spontaneous labor to begin until 42 weeks to eat and drink during labor intermittent monitoring Why is the difference in language between allowed and supported so important? Why does it matter? Support imparts dignity, and allow takes it away. Support humanizes. Allow dehumanizes. Support restores balance of power. Allow leads to imbalance of power in labor. When we use the language of “allowed”, it is…
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Doula’ing the Doulas
When the doulas need replenishing Why doula’ing the doulas? As clients know, sometimes labors can be quick and intense. Sometimes, they can be long and intense. Sometimes, labor can be traumatic. Other times, everyone present is floating on air. While we don’t get to choose what will happen during each birth, we do get to validate and value each birth and family. I love my job …pretty much everything about it. If there was a contest for best clients, I would nominate mine. They are a pleasure! If I there was a contest for the cutest babies of clients? Well, it wouldn’t be fair to other doulas. Refresh Sometimes, it…
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Patrick’s Birth Story
My newest lil man has arrived!!!! Such an exciting time! I’m gonna try to get all my thoughts into one place (mainly for my own reference/memory keeping hahaha — you’ll have to excuse the punctuation — i had to type it in ‘thought’ format! ha! Sooo let’s see… we found out about Mr. Patrick in November.. It made going home for Thanksgiving a lot of fun. We had Sadie do both the family announcements. At the in-laws we had her say (and she’s got a very dramatic flair so this was extra fun) – “Wait a minute, Erin needs an extra plate because she’s eating for two!!!!!!” Then at my…
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Beck’s Birthing Story
On this page, we share birth stories our clients have written and sent to us. Permission is given to share these birth stories and pictures. We hope you find them as inspirational as each of our clients have been to us. Welcome sweet baby boy. Your mamma is so beautiful, strong, and courageous. She is kind of a hero. Your daddy? He sure knows how to stand by your mamma. He’s kind of your mamma’s hero. I think you’re going to like them. It was an honor to be with them as they welcomed you into their arms. Here is your story: Our baby boy was born at 10:28am on July…
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Breastfeeding a newborn! Help!
Help! I just pushed a baby out of my body and breastfeeding my newborn is making that look easy! This is common. Breastfeeding is well…it involves a learning curve and is possibly the hardest, most rewarding learning curve ever. We want to encourage you on this learning curve. We will be posting a series on breastfeeding helps. Keep going. It will be so worth it!* We offer postpartum doula support for mothers during this very special season. Please visit postpartum doula to learn more. For our first post in this series about breastfeeding a newborn, how about a couple of recipes? By the way if you know someone expecting…
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Sad State of Postpartum Care in the U.S.
Why am I writing about the uniquely U.S. state of postpartum care and recuperation? When a woman carries a baby and gives birth, her body undergoes great changes. There are visible signs of those changes, but that only shows a very small part of what her body has done. Her blood vessels have changed in order to accommodate twice the blood volume. Her lung capacity has changed, and it will take most of a year for it to return pre-pregnancy way of operation. Her muscles separated for the expansion of her womb, joints and connective tissue all became looser in preparation for delivery. All of her abdominal organs were…
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After Birth – The Golden Hour
The Golden Hour – What it is, what it is not Many changes for the better have been happening in the labor and delivery ward. New terms such as Baby Friendly Hospital and the Golden Hour are becoming a part of the new jargon. What do they mean? We have written an article describing Baby Friendly Hospital designation. Briefly, it encourages polices that support the mother-baby dyad, promotes policies that support breastfeeding and remove policies that interfere with breastfeeding and the mother-baby relationship. The article is available here. One of the policies that is part of the baby friendly designation is honoring the Golden Hour following birth. The Golden Hour…
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Birth – The design is not broken
This has been on my heart a good bit lately. I hope it will that not only encourage, but also empower the belief that indeed your body was designed not only to grow a baby but to birth a baby. The design is not broken. For the mothers who birthed through c-section: your body works. You birthed, recovered, and cared for newborn while recovering from surgery. You are so strong. Dear Mama and Supporters of Mamas, About birth – The design is not broken. Medicalized birth can give a very subtle, covert message to women that the design of birth is broken. It is much more powerful than many women preparing…
