Living Life in Bloom

  The postpartum time is about nourishment, rest, and bonding.  Some families I work with aren’t sure what to expect from their postpartum visits with a doula. When I visit mothers and birthing families in the days and weeks after their babies are born, I hold space for healing and transitioning. As a doula, I often hold babies – but most importantly, I hold mothers.  A postpartum visit with families includes checking in on healing and recovery, nourishment through meals and sleep, and infant feeding and care. When it comes to healing and recovery, I check in on how a mother or birthing person’s body is healing after birth, including their mind and emotions. I ask about bleeding, how a mother is feeling in general, and perineum or incision care.  I ask questions about moods and worries, too. This is a time to understand if mood swings and tears that come with natural hormonal processes after birth sound healthy or if they indicate a need for more support. I ask about...

You've hired your birth doula and have scheduled your first prenatal visit together at your home. Now you're wondering what to expect! A doula provides emotional, physical, and informational support before, during, and after birth. Before birth, doulas work to bond with their clients, plan, and provide education in preparation for birth and postpartum. Here's a general outline I use when working with my clients during prenatal visits. I customize the discussion based on each client's needs and follow the conversation wherever it flows. Most of my prenatal visits last an hour and a half, while some can go longer (and some seasoned parents don't feel they need the full time). Because there is so much to cover in a prenatal visit, the items in the outline below are usually broken out between two-three visits with families. Welcome and introductions Doula, client, client partner, kids, family and pets Guess date and other basic details about the pregnancy (OB, midwife, ...

Resting Lying on the floor in front of a fan Daydreaming Staying home Going on adventures and ignoring the housework Eating ice cream with abandon Taking up space Not knowing for sure Crying Longing Laughing Wishing for fall Wishing summer would never end Drinking lemonade, with sugar Saying no Saying yes even when you're unsure Changing your mind Going slow Feeling everything Feeling lost Staring out the window  Letting things percolate Taking long lunches Reading a book Ditching the book you were reading and selecting something more delightful instead It's all okay You are okay

Your body, spirit and family are undergoing huge changes with pregnancy and childbirth! It’s important to take care of your mental and emotional health. Resources are available to help support you. Tending to your mental and emotional health can include focusing on nutritious foods, hydration, rest, and bonding with your family – including your baby (both before and after birth), other children, and your partner. It can include moving your body to help feel flow and connection, connecting in a parent or friend group, meditating or practicing breathwork, creating art, and listening to music. Sometimes it can include working with specialized professionals such as a mental health therapist, a psychiatry provider, or a spiritual/religious leader. This blog post focuses on signs that specialized help might be needed. It provides links to resources to help identify and respond to mental health conditions in the perinatal period. Here are some signs that might mean you or your partner need ad...

A significant portion of the pregnant clients I work with are offered an induction of labor at one time or another during the course of their prenatal care. Here's what I share with them: Thanks for reaching out about making choices about induction. I’m including a number of resources here to both help you a) find a framework for decision making and b) view evidence and perspectives that you can use to help make the best decision that’s right for you. You can also use this information to guide conversations with your OB/GYN doctor, midwife, and other care providers. You can, for example, ask how the evidence of a certain intervention applies to your particular situation; and you can ask how your preferences and experiences may be impacted by making certain decisions. It can be a lot to take in. Your doula can work alongside your care team to support you with informational resources and a listening ear. Frameworks for Decision Making about Induction Dr. Sara Wickham (one midwife...

 In September of 2023, the Duluth News Tribune published my opinion piece:  Those with substance-use disorders need support without judgment . I'm including a visual of the piece here. Substance misuse in our communities is here and real. Avoiding the topic or couching these challenges in shame and stigma hurts rather than helps. Supporting families with love leads to healing. Substance misuse, along with associated medical conditions called substance use disorders (SUDs), have social, medical/biological, behavioral, and spiritual components. SUD is often closely tied to mental health conditions and trauma. When substance misuse or SUD impact mothers and birthing people, the stigma and shame is complicated even further with the intense societal expectations about how women and birthing parents "should" behave to be "good" caregivers.  But here's the thing: families are interconnected. Punishing or judging keeps these real health imbalances in the darkness an...

  Birth is an intense experience that can sometimes be overwhelming. Grounding ourselves in our senses helps facilitate birth and can enhance our capacity to navigate and cope. In crafting birth plans and preferences, I like to consider sensory input based on each birthing mother and person’s unique nervous system. Here are some ways to think about how each of the five senses can inform the structure of a birth plan. Sight. Candles (LED if at a birth center or hospital), twinkle lights, and photos to focus on can help provide a calming environment or a grounding visual. Some people find it helpful to hone in on a focal point in the room or outside the window during intense contractions. Dim lighting can help encourage the hormones of birth to flow naturally. Sound. Some people might prefer to have absolute quiet during their birth. Some might prefer to play a playlist – either with earbuds or out loud on a speaker. Different types of sound might be more preferable during differen...

  Listening, when done right, is a full-body activity. Meaning transforms in the light of the speaker-listener relationship, and comes alive in the interpretation by an open witness. Robert Greenleaf described listening as “an attitude toward other people and what they are trying to express” ( Servant Leadership ). In deep listening, we assert respect and acceptance of the speaker in their full spirit and humanity. Greenleaf writes that “a true natural servant automatically responds to any problem by listening first.” Listening is a key element of leadership and team development. It’s essential to bridge-building among groups of people. And it can be used in a healing relationship. Rachel Naomi Remen writes in her chapter Just Listen, that “the most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen.” Listening with presence and heart means avoiding the urge to interrupt, even to express understanding. When we interrupt, “we move the focus of attention ...

  Throughout the month of February, we see stories and images to remind us of Black contributions to American history. I don’t think celebrating Black History Month was ever intended to negate Black presence throughout the other months of the year, but honestly it feels too small. I’d been trying to think of something valuable to write during the month of February and felt stuck; there’s so much to say and so much to share. Here we are in March, and I’m at least going to make a nod towards the wonder of Black power in birth and parenting. I hope we can all celebrate this year-round. Black mamas and birthing people experience institutionalized racism in their daily lives, and this ranges from economic barriers due to stolen chances at generational wealth, to facing little “t” traumas (microaggressions), to large “T” Traumas (mistreatment). They are also burdened with historical traumas from mistreatment of past generations. These continuous incidences of implicit bias and institutio...

Our world seems fixated on “fixing.” Action plans, process improvement plans, variance analysis – all of these govern ways of thinking in organizations and in our lives. Everything from our health to our home organization to our financial success can be regulated, allegedly, by a combination of the right approaches and products. In pregnancy, birth, and parenting there’s a lot that’s out of our control. That’s an enormous mindshift at a fundamental level for many of us. But it’s a necessary mindshift for transitioning into parenting. In labor, trying to control or fight against the waves of contractions causes pain at best, and stalls labor at worst. In parenting, we can drive ourselves absolutely crazy by hanging on too tightly to outcomes. Most parents have had some situation that looks like this: you plan a trip to the park; snack bags and extra clothes and supplies are packed. The three-year old is dressed and ready, and the six-month old is strapped into the carseat. Then the thre...

 Birth trauma can feel like peering through a fence and not knowing how to get to the other side. Trauma can look different from birth to birth and from one person to the next. It can impact mothers and parents, caregivers, family members, and health staff. In my view, we must take steps to prevent birth trauma and address it when it develops. We can support birthing women and gender diverse parents, their families, and their care teams.  Prevention can look like engaging the mother/birther as a co-decision maker and leader of their birth process; embracing true informed consent; avoiding coercion; and using open, nonthreatening communication before, during, and after birth. We can start to heal birth trauma by bringing stories into the light. Birthing parents who have experienced trauma may find healing through creative expression. They may benefit from therapy which could include trauma-focused psychotherapy, spiritual counseling, naturopathic or allopathic medicine, and som...

Recently I was part of a social media exchange. A doula posted that she had missed a birth and explained the circumstances. The client had a rare but serious complication and had an emergency C-section before the doula could arrive. The birth professional expressed that she felt “awful” and was looking for words of encouragement, support. Being a doula is hard. Lots of jobs are hard. This one is hard in unique ways. Oftentimes, we pour our hearts and souls into our work. Things are not clear-cut. In one situation the call we make works out perfectly. In another, we make the same call, but we miss a birth or a client is unhappy with services. I offered words of encouragement and shared a little bit about how I would have handled it, affirming her choices. My main goal was to help her feel less alone and to feel supported. That’s what she asked for. Over the next few days, comments piled onto the thread. And comments were made upon comments of other commenters. The first few comments w...

In the summer of 2006 I was in my third trimester with baby Charlotte and living in South Carolina. We were near Charleston in a small town in Berkeley County and it was oppressively hot. Out of curiosity today I looked up the weather reports from that time. The South Carolina State Climatology Office published a summary of weather trends by month for that year. The report says "South Carolina baked the first week of August." A nearby Berkeley County town apparently reported 103 degrees on August 3. The report indicates that tropical storms followed not too long after that, which is typical for the region that time of year. Charlotte (who now goes by Caedyn) was born on September 21. I remember intense fatigue -- more so than with Juliana who was born on New Year's Eve. I became dizzy immediately anytime I walked outside (to be fair, I've never been great with heat so that's not so out of the ordinary). The heat and humidity formed a solid wall, and I had to face...

Most of the time, babies in utero turn head-down, or cephalic, before they are ready to be born. But sometimes they are breech, with bottom or feet down. In the United States, nearly all breech presenting babies are birthed through Cesarean section (surgical intervention). But it doesn’t have to be this way. Breech presentation can be viewed as a variation of normal – occurring in about 3-4% of term pregnancies – and there are ways to safely support vaginal breech birth. One way to support breech birth is to ensure that birth attendants are trained in physiologic breech. Unfortunately, residency programs in the US are now rarely training obstetrician physicians (OB doctors) in physiologic breech birth. Physicians may be trained that it’s so dangerous it should never be offered as an option. There are some OB physicians in practice who have the skills and the comfort level to support vaginal breech birth. There are also many midwives who are skilled and can support out of hospital breec...

Birthing women and people of size deserve no less than to be respected, honored, and wholeheartedly supported during their pregnancy and postpartum experiences. Pregnant women with higher body mass index (BMI) may be discriminated against. They may be presented with a barrage of anticipated risks rather than getting individualized support when seeking health services. BMI has (finally) been taken down a notch in the medical community, at least “on paper.” The American Medical Association published a new policy in June of 2023 that aimed to clarify the role of BMI. They called out “historical harm,” “use for racist exclusion,” and other limitations of the measure. In BMI We Trust, Reframing the Body Mass Index as a Measure of Health , medical sociologist Iliya Gutin argued that we should use BMI as only part of a holistic view of health, recognize its limitations, and be more flexible about its interpretation.  But how do people of size actually feel when seeking health services? I...