A mother choosing an out-of-hospital birth with a midwife might not consider hiring a doula for labor support. The usual rationale is that she has her midwife and partner for support, so a doula is one extra person who may not be necessary. Plus, it’s an added cost to an already out-of-pocket experience. Most people think of doulas as important roles for women planning a natural birth in the hospital to help navigate the potential ‘cascade of interventions’ that can take a woman far from her birth wishes. So why would one hire a doula for a planned birth center birth? When stacking the odds in your favor of having the birth you want, a doula is one of the top tools to make it happen.
Read moreLeft-Side Lying
So, what’s the deal with hearing that sleeping or laying on your left side is best while you’re pregnant?
Read moreI'm Pregnant...Now What?
‘I just found out I am pregnant.’
‘Congratulations! We will see you in 5-6 weeks.’
‘What? What do I do until then?’
Breech Baby & A Mother's Options
One of the most common questions we are asked by prospective clients is, “What happens if my baby is breech?”
Read moreHow To Find The Right Pediatrician
Finding a pediatrician who’s right for you and your family’s needs is important – your child’s health and wellness will be in their hands.
Here are some things to consider when choosing a pediatrician.
Read moreConsuming the Placenta: Making An Informed Decision
As a midwife, I often am asked the question, “What do you think about placenta encapsulation?” Although, it’s reported that placentas have been used in traditional Chinese medicine since the 1500s, consuming the placenta (aka placentophagy) in the postpartum period has become a recent trend in the last 15-20 years. (1,2)
Read moreThe Labyrinth
“Mexican Labyrinth of Birth” Painting by Pam England (author and founder of “Birthing From Within” a childbirth preparation book and class series)
"This painting was inspired by a story my friend Alberto told me. Two of his tias (aunties) are parteras (midwives) in Oaxaca, Mexico. There, women who give birth are called warriors. 'The midwives tell a pregnant woman that when she is in labor she will have to go to the underworld where spirits hold all the unborn babies … She will have to find her baby, do battle in labor with the spirit to free her baby and bring him or her home—bring her baby back and into to the world, to the family who is waiting. Only she can do this.'
As a midwife, I have the distinct pleasure and honor of supporting women to safely traverse their ‘labyrinths’, reminding them they are safe, their babies are safe and to keep going while watching them go deeper inside themselves, battle, struggle, surrender, transform and come back as mothers with her new babies.
Giving birth is probably the hardest thing a woman will do in her life. I have even heard women say that at some point in labor they thought they were going to die. But the difficulty and the battle to cope with the intensity that is natural childbirth rests not in the body trying to figure out how to birth a child but in the mind.
I believe the feeling of dying while giving birth has less to do with the actual pain experienced (as many women later report that the pain was manageable) and more to do with the fact that what those women thought they understood or could wrap their head around about birth went beyond its limit and that part of their identity, and sense of control was dying.
This moment is essentially the surrender to the fight of the mind. When this happens, the last layers of the old identity are shed and the mother self (in addition to the baby) is beginning to be born. A laboring mother also moves out of her analytical brain and more into the primal, instinctual part of her brain where there are no thoughts, words, only sounds, colors, feelings – a dream like state – the part of her brain that traverses the labyrinth and progress is made and she is that much closer to birthing her baby.
Where there is light in bringing new life into the world, there is also darkness. It is this rite of passage of traveling to the ‘underworld’ and through the labyrinth – the death before birth – that is necessary and not to be feared. Each woman has their own labyrinth that is meant for her to travel through, as it will show her in the deepest depths of her soul the strength, courage and love she has to safely birth her baby and be born as a new family.