See my latest articles below, or click on a topic category to find out what I've written on that specific topic, enjoy!
If you have found your way to this blog, then you are clearly interested in learning about childbirth education. And there is a lot to learn about the learning, so to speak! Please allow me to break down a few burning questions you may have, like why taking a class is so, so, so important, as well as which ones are worth your while.
It was such an honor to speak with renowned pregnancy and birth author Henci Goer…We talk all things out-of-hospital home and birth center birthing as well as hospital birth. What is the evidence saying about the safety of each option, and how can you best navigate the world of having a baby these days….to birth YOUR way, have safer outcomes and feel wonderful about your experience.
Starting out as a Lamaze teacher and doula, Henci Goer’s life’s work soon became analyzing and synthesizing the obstetric research in order to give pregnant women and birth professionals access to what constitutes optimal care in childbirth.
She is the author of four books: Labor Pain: What’s Your Best Strategy?, Optimal Care in Childbirth: The Case for a Physiologic Approach (co-author Amy Romano MSN, CNM), The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth, and Obstetric Myths Versus Research Realities. In addition, she has written numerous blog posts and articles and given lectures around the world.
In recognition of her work, she has received, among others, the American College of Nurse-Midwives Best Book of the Year Award, Lamaze International’s President’s Award, DONA International’s Klaus & Kennell Research Award, a Lifetime Achievement Award from BOLD Atlanta, and the Media Award from the American Association of Birth Centers.
The “Take Charge of Your Birth Series,” short books on single topics to help women make informed choices and obtain optimal care for themselves and their babies, is a continuation of her work. Labor Pain: What’s Your Best Strategy? is the first book in the new series. It delivers up-to-date access to the best medical research plus practical strategies for developing your plan and putting it into action. Also available in audiobook.
Website: hencigoer.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/takechargeofyourbirth
Instagram: @takechargeofyourbirth
Her Latest Book: Labor Pain: What’s Your Best Strategy? is available on Amazon in paperback, ebook, hardback, and audiobook versions.
If you are planning a pregnancy, expecting, wanting to prepare as best you can for birth and postpartum, get yourself my online Guides!
I’ve taken everything I’ve learned from over 27 years in my private practice and I’ve poured all of my love, passion, knowledge, and experience into creating something truly special for you… my new Pregnancy, Birth & Postpartum Guides. My transfer rate from home to hospital is 7% which means 93% of mamas are having beautiful natural homebirths, and I have not once had to transfer a mama for an epidural because she could not handle the sensations of normal labor. Not once. A huge part of that is how I help them prepare. I want that for you!
As they say, knowledge is power, and my Guides/e-courses can be a great way to understand the pregnancy, birth and postpartum process, clear up any confusion and trepidation, find your confidence, inner calm and strength, bust through fears and misconceptions, get expert guidance on everything you need to know, learn coping tools and mindset shifts to last a lifetime, as well as boost your health and well-being, and absolutely love your experience no matter how challenging.
Whether you’re an experienced or new parent, there are over 24 hours of videos, workbooks, and PDFs to answer all of your questions. Everything in my Guide is searchable; so you can just type or talk and it’ll bring you right to the exact moment in the video where I answer your question. Try it! Say "Labor Positions" and it'll bring you right to the moment I start talking about positions ideal for labor. It’ll blow your mind!
The key to a positive birth is feeling confident, strong, relaxed, and empowered during the entire process, regardless of the twists and turns it may take. I give my full heart and all I know in everything I do to support Moms like you!
have created THREE Guides with hours of searchable videos, workbooks and pdfs to lead you to the birth of your dreams! They are easy to use, mobile friendly, and transliterated and translated in Spanish, French, and any language you need! AND THAT IS HUGE! TAKE ADVANTAGE NOW, AND YOU HAVE LIFETIME ACCESS.
For more in depth discussion and holistic modalities for common ailments through the entire journey of having a baby, check out my Natural Birth Secrets book 2nd edition, available in print, kindle and ebook.
Blog post featured image: Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash
--- BEGIN TRANSCRIPT Instagram.com/homesweethomebirth ---
Hi. I wanted to come on and talk about cesarean and why I'm so passionate about preventing it.
But what I want to mention first is that the rates in this country, in the United States, are going up and our outcomes are getting worse. Okay. The national average is 30%.
That's just unacceptable.
Some hospitals around where I live, the rate is 40 to 50%. Unbelievable. Why? There are so many reasons why, but I just want to share something with you.
My rate is 5%. My rate of cesarean birth is 5%. I'm not bragging. This has nothing really to do with me. I,
What's different. Why is that?
Why do you think the rates in my practice are 5%, and the rates in the national average of hospitals are 30% and climbing?
The families that come to my practice don't have different bodies. The people don't have different bodies.
You know what's different. They're getting midwifery care.
They're getting midwifery care. They are low risk and healthy. And maybe someone even labeled them as high risk, but they're not really high risk. They're just healthy. They might have an issue or two, but you know what they're doing? They're taking responsibility. That's also what they're doing.
They're preparing as I recommend them to prepare, and they're taking responsibility for the birth, they're not just saying to me, do whatever, right.
They are taking it upon themselves.
Why do they need to prepare? I'll tell you why they need to prepare, because I know that women's bodies know exactly how to give birth. A healthy body knows how to give birth. Right?
Why in the West do we need to prepare? Because we're in the West. We're in the Western culture.
I feel so strongly about this because I do hospital shifts. I do hospital shifts and I love to do hospitals shifts in hospitals that serve the immigrant populations.
I love that. And I can actually do prenatal care and help a mama in labor as much as possible with my heart and with my Spanish. Now I am not fluent, okay, but I love working with this community, the immigrant population that's coming up, because I'll tell you why. Not just, I love them, but the less Westernized they are, they don't need to take childbirth classes, they just come and birth just like that.
And you know why? Because the newer they are to this country, the less westernized they are, they came from countries where they were surrounded by people having birth. And in a community. And the women in their community, the elders, the wiser ones would talk to them about it and they would see it.
I mean, I just spoke with a grand-momma, an abuela, who had 11 babies in her casa - back in her country. 11 babies in her Casa. That's what everybody did.
She didn't need a childbirth course. She was surrounded by everybody doing that. So, she got that education, and she got that by osmosis, that “We know how to do this. This is what we know how to do". And you know what, it's hard, but we can do hard things. Like we don't need to numb ourselves from pain. They deal with pain. They just deal with it. The more westernized they are, the more we are in our brains, the more we are in fear. Not “we”. No, because I've healed myself, I've tried to de-Westernize myself when it comes to helping moms give birth.
And I feel strongly about this, because, we can't help the way of our culture. Okay. We get fear messages. Oh my gosh we get fear messages all over the media. You know, someone sees you're pregnant they're going to tell you a story. And we are addicted to Googling everything. We're just too much in our brains. It's just, it's just the way it is. We have to research this, we have to research that, and we have to numb. We're not comfortable with discomfort.
And that's why I love my yoga training. That taught me, that deep in yoga, to combine that with being a midwife is just an amazing combination. Yoga doesn't come from the West. It comes from the East. To be comfortable with uncomfortable. To be comfortable with discomfort. To be comfortable and relax into intensity.
And I needed that to help me understand and how to help other people do that. But there are cultures around the world, here are countries around the world that never did any yoga. They just live in a community, and are surrounded by the elders and other women in the community. They just do it. You know, we do hard things. And we just give birth.
So, that’s why I think a huge part of the success of a lot in my practice, and a lot of my colleagues, is that we're really are, to the families that have a baby in the home, in our practice are Westernized. They might want to have a home birth, but it's their first time, they know nothing about birth. They haven't been around it.
They tell me they don't know anybody that's had a home birth that I can connect them with. Well, I know tons of people that have had a home birth.
So, that's why I love connecting moms and their partners, so that they don't feel so isolated. But a lot of times the families that come to me, their parents gave birth in hospitals with all kinds of interventions and they just, they feel very isolated and unprepared. And, and just looking at videos and pictures, scrolling down, on Instagram is not the way to prepare. I'm sorry. It's not. And that's why I really think a lot of the success comes from myself and my colleagues really being insistent that the family who comes in to have a home birth is going to prepare like a boss, right?
Get de-Westernized, get primal and get sensual, and learn how to relax into intensity and learn about birth because no one ever taught you. Right. And learn the techniques that you need to do to master your calm. And, and to just let your body do it. And, and I think that's a huge part of our success.
I track my stats, and unfortunately the 7% of times that I have to go into the hospital, it's not because of an emergency. Emergencies are rare. We deal with them, or I can count them on my hand.
I'm the EMT. The midwife is the EMT at the birth. We prevent and we deal with any problems that come up. And if we need to go to the hospital, we need to go to the hospital.
But that's 7% of the time. That means 93% are having births at home.
But who is my 7% that needs to go to the hospital?
It tends to be, and I track my statistics. I've been tracking them for years. It's people with long, stuck labors, first time birthers, first time vaginal birthers, who did not prepare.
They just didn't want to take a course, they were preparing on Instagram or they, or they just weren't preparing at all before Instagram.
You can't prepare on Instagram. You have to take a class today. Yes. In the West. You have to take a class, unless your mom and your grandparents have given birth at home, and you're surrounded by, natural birth. Because natural birth in the West is very different. It's a very different experience if you've never done it before and you can't prepare on social media. Okay?
Then, you have to think about who are you going to, who are you going to - let's say you want a natural birth. Well, if the hospital or the provider that you're going to is, let's say you're healthy and you want a natural birth, if the hospital and the provider that you're going to doesn't do natural birth. They're not into it. They weren't trained in it. They're into interventive birth, it's going to be very hard for you to have a natural birth, right? And one intervention leads to another intervention, leads to the other intervention, and unfortunately ends up in too much intervention and complications and cesarean births.
I am so grateful for cesarean births for when it's necessary and that's why I post on it. And yes, we could have gentle cesareans for those mamas. Five percent - they're still human beings, and that's still a birth, and those mamas are rockstars because they need to have a compassionate, human, respectful family centered, gentle cesarean, and we can have as much as possible that home-sweet-home birth in the hospital or in the operating room, but we still have to prevent.
So, you have to think about – even if you want a vaginal birth - let's say you want an epidural - if you want a vaginal birth, you have to know. Ask “What's the rate of cesareans in your hospital?”. Is it 30%? Is it 40%? Is it 50%? Then it's very unlikely - unless you prepare. Then have to prepare even more, right, to fight that system. Because, I don’t know, I talk about this all the time and I'm so passionate about it because I think that's how we make the change.
How we be the change, how we make the change, is for you all to prepare yourselves and take back your birth and know what setting and what provider you're going to.
And if you are blessed, if you're healthy, or you have a little issue or two, that doesn't risk you out of midwifery care. Find a midwife.
That's the model of care in a lot of countries where the midwives who are trained. You know, I have seven years of training, it's not just a weekend course. I had to get my bachelor's, and I got my master's, and where I live, I need a master's degree. I have seven years of training and education, and it's specifically focused on supporting the low risk healthy.
Yes, we screen, we prevent, and we look. That's what prenatal care is all about, that relationship, and making sure that it is still safe and appropriate for that mama to have a home birth, or a birth with a midwife in the hospital.
But midwifery, our specialty, is supporting normal. Keeping it normal. Lay low on intervention. No intervention. No interventions necessary when it's working well.
What's an obstetrician? What's an OB/GYN. Do you know the difference? There’s a huge difference, and we need them, thank god, but an obstetrician and a gynecologist, OB/GYN, goes to medical school and does residency and extra training for high-risk pregnancies and surgery, to use very highly sophisticated technology to diagnose and treat high-risk situations, medically or surgically. But that kind of provider, I have doctors, I love the obstetricians that I work, but they always tell me they know nothing about natural birth. They're bored of it. They don't know what to do. They love the midwives. If someone's healthy, they say “you're going to get better care with a midwife”.
So, it's very important for you to know the difference between a midwife and an obstetrician, their training and their background, because if you want a surgical birth, then no, you don't go to a midwife – go to a surgeon.
And that's what an obstetrician and gynecologist, OB/GYN is. And we need them.
And that's why there are certain countries, that's why the United States ranks the lowest among all developed countries in the world, in terms of maternal and newborn outcomes. We're losing more babies and mamas, or having more serious complications with mamas and babies, than all the other developed countries in the world.
The countries that have the best outcomes are countries where, like Sweden, there's a lot of countries where everybody sees a midwife, if they're healthy. The doctor (obstetrician) is there for the high risk. High-risk and when surgery is needed. When medicine and surgery is needed.
And that's how we serve the whole population of people having babies, and that's how we get excellent outcomes - live, happy, healthy mamas and babies.
So last week I talked about a bleeding in pregnancy - this week I thought I'd talk about this.
If you found that helpful, comment, share. I'd love to hear what you have to say, but that's all for now.
Have a wonderful weekend. Bye.
--- END TRANSCRIPT ---
Plan like a Boss! Create your ideal birth plan and take back your birth!
Feel empowered and prepared for your childbirth experience and all the possible interventions you need to make decisions about - whether you are planning to birth in the hospital, birthing center or home setting! :)
Creating your ideal birth plan with this FREE video and ebook guide will not only help you prepare in advance, it will:
help you speak up for what you want and what you do not want
provide the keys to prevent high rates of unnecessary, risky medical and surgical interventions and birth trauma, and
coach you about the hows and whys, and some great recommendations for helping you design the birth of your dreams!
This is the special guide that I give to each family in my practice, that has been refined and refined over the many years of practice, brought to life in an updatable, printable and shareable guide.
Then use these different but crucial resources to prepare like a boss! Prevent that first cesarean or plan your VBAC! It takes work and is worth every penny, but this is your and your baby’s health and life we are protecting.
Get a comprehensive holistic reference guide to the journey of getting pregnant, being pregnant, birth, breastfeeding, postpartum and beyond. Check out the second edition of my international and national best selling book Natural Birth Secrets.
@mikalacatherine
"Today, along with every day since this day, I am so proud to be a woman and a mom." wrote inspired mama @mikalacatherine. "I had the incredible opportunity and privilege to carry my little boy for almost 41 weeks. But what I am most proud of is the fact that I was able to give birth to him. It's something I think about literally every day. I did it. Women every day do it. It blows my mind because the frequency of births makes it seem common. But let me tell you, it is not common. It is quite literally the worst and best thing I have ever done. Having given birth has made me so proud of all moms because now I know what each and every mom has had to go through with pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum. None are easy. All are important and meaningful. I know I risk seeming conceded with this post, but I am so dang proud of myself for doing it. Some days I am in awe of that fact. So today, I am so proud to be a woman and to stand with other women. With all mommies and caretakers. With all moms whether they have carried their babies physically or in their hearts instead. I am honored."
I honor of the billions of strong women who have found their strength and birthed (majority at home, naturally) since the beginning of time. Billions. Something to remember in labor, to encourage and empower.
I saw the exam table and thought what a great place for warrior - because women are warriors, period - no matter where and how they birthed, whether they had babies or not. In all these years I have met so many amazing women, women who have faced and dealt with a range of serious life challenges, many many women who grow, birth, feed and raise little humans, and those who were unable to even get pregnant or carry their pregnancies. The warrior pose is in honor of all women who find their strength at times when it seems impossible - and those are the women I have been blessed to know and learn from.
Warriors are not born and they are not made…Warriors create themselves through trial and error, mistakes and limitations, pain and suffering, being upside down, wide open and vulnerable – and that is strength. Warriors get up and try again in spite of all of it. “Strength doesn’t come from what you can do. It comes from overcoming the things you thought you couldn’t.” Ashley Greene. We women are stronger than we know, and we find that out when we have too. And once we tap into that power, we birth our babies, we handle the challenges, we birth ourselves...each and every day, with the little hardships and the mountains that seem impossible to climb...until we do.
Art by Catie Atkinson @spiritysol.
"Behind every man stands no woman. There is no greater man than the man that can acknowledge the woman standing right next to him." ~ Rachel Wolchin. Women rock! Mothers rock! We are strong because we had to be, wiser because we learned through our powerful experiences, always doing our best with what we know, have and are faced with at the time; we are admirable warriors of honor because we stayed the course, did not give up despite the challenges and struggles, and had the courage to plow forward irregardless of fears. Our blessings are that we have a fan club - the little ones we grow within us, birth, nurture and take care of, who adore us without caring about the mess, the laundry, our to-do lists. They are the little ones we adopt or foster. They are the people we deeply care for who are not our babies. We are beautiful to them no matter how we look or dress; we are perfect to them even when we make mistakes. They want our time and loving attention more than any material gift. I would love women to be treated and to treat themselves like the goddesses they are.
Photo by Megan Hancock Photography
Let Me Help You Create The Happiest Birth Experience Of Your Life...
Whether you're a first time or experienced momma,
Or a midwife, doula, or birth professional guiding mommas..
Regardless if you are planning a birth at home, a hospital, a birth center or need a cesarean section, or if you are taking another childbirth education class…
You Really Can Create The Delivery Of Your Dreams.
And have a blissful birth wherever you are.
More Precious Than A Wedding...A Birth Should Be A Celebration!
Let me show you how to…
Understand the sensations of your body and connect your intuition with how your body is communicating and leading you towards what to do during labor
Tap into your inner calm to deeply relax yourself,letting go of busy, stressful and fearful thoughts on demand for the health of baby
Speak your truth from your heart in a way that deepens your relationships, sets clear boundaries, and has people listen to you and support you before, during and after pregnancy
Trust yourself, connect with your body wisdom andcommunicate with baby in belly
Connect with natural time and sync your body and mind up with your unique biological clock for ease from pregnancy to postpartum
Reprogram negative patterns, stories, and beliefs that undermine your confidence, strength and self trust so you can rock your birth
Physicians and midwives around the world recommend my teachings to their pregnant clients and many Doulas across the country learn the secrets of blissful birthing from me to supplement their Doula Training & Certification process!
To learn more, visit: LOVE YOUR BIRTH Online Childbirth Course!
It is based on my years of experience, as a midwife and yoga teacher, helping thousands of women tap into their calm and live and birth from a place of grounded relaxation and joy.
Educate and inspire yourself, ready your body, ready your mind, ready your heart with my list of TOP BOOKS of every category you can imagine listed - with links on where to get them as books, listen on audio, or read them on kindle. The better prepared we are for a situation, the better the outcome will be. I feel passionate about empowering and educating women to get the most out of their womanhood, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, breastfeeding, mama, yoga and life journeys!
I am excited about this course is by a best selling author whose personal story, insights and life changes after recovery from terminal cancer and a near death experience are beyond inspiring and riveting. Not only is it such a testimony to her strength, I feel it can help moms with many of the physical, emotional and psychological challenges associated with pregnancy, postpartum and beyond, also help all women and the professionals who serve them, and really every human being....to find their strength that is already within them.
Photo by Melissa Oosting
VIDEO CAN BE SEEN HERE.
Most mamas like to count baby's toes and fingers. The amount of creases in the baby's feet are simply one of several signs this healthy baby is "post term", born in the weeks past estimated due date, when this baby was ready to be born. It is one of the assessments we use to calculate the new baby's gestational age (how many weeks baby was in utero). I marvel how this calculation often differs from pregnancy dating. I had a mama in my practice who came to me with her last 4 pregnancies. She told me her first 4 babies were born 4 weeks past her estimated due date, but they were all evaluated as term at birth, without any indications of being "late." Her last 4 babies were also born 4 weeks after her estimated due date, had I calculated it based on the first day of her last period alone; but they actually arrived at just the right time, all evaluated to be term - as I used a variety of other assessments, including past history, cycle characteristics, and when she had intercourse, to get a more accurate dating for her pregnancy.
Art by Catie Atkinson @spiritysol.
What is this due date and how can you more accurately help calculate it to prevent false diagnosis of postdates and its associated risks of induction? The estimated due date is just that - an estimate of when mom and baby of a healthy pregnancy will go into labor; it is an estimate of how many weeks old your fetus is at any stage of your pregnancy - which is important to know, as this impacts your maternity care and the well-being of you and your baby. If you go into labor, it would be important to know that your baby is term and there are no issues with the baby's gestational age. For example, if you go into labor at a certain point before your estimated due date, it's important to know if it is too early for your baby to be born, your preterm baby would be at increased risk and need intensive care, so efforts would be made to try to stop it. Likewise, if you are past your given due date, in many modern obstetrical practices, in an attempt to avoid small risk of postdates for babies that increase after 42 weeks, there is a cascade of interventions from frequent testing of fetal well-being to induction when you are not really due or ready to labor yet; this can lead to increased stress, more painful harder labor, anesthesia and other unnecessary interventions that may culminate in an unplanned cesarean birth. Actually, only 5% of women give birth on their due date, even with the most accurately assessed pregnancy dating. I like to use the language due month, as most babies come a few weeks before or after that date - more commonly a week or more after it for first time mamas.
@yogawithalanna
So, when speaking about due dates and postdates, I like to start with education and prevention during preconception, before a women gets pregnant. And even if pregnant, we can still do some detective work and might come up with helpful information that may impact your pregnancy dating. I advise women to know their fascinating bodies and menstrual cycles, to track how often their periods come, when they have signs of ovulation and when they had or did not have intercourse.
Art by Catie Atkinson @spiritysol.
With this knowledge, mamas can TAKE CHARGE OF THEIR FERTILITY to either prevent pregnancy, or try to become pregnant, learn when they conceived and even when they are pregnant before a positive pregnancy test. This is one of my favorite books on the subject.
Mamas who know their date of conception, more details about their cycles, and their past pregnancy histories (when they went into labor previously and what the gestational age assessment was of each of their babies), have a much more accurate due date than basing it on first date of last period alone. This is one of many ways mamas can become empowered and proactive.
It also helps to connect with nature, and your connection with it - your body is nature, has its own biological clock, and you might want to look into how it relates to the moon cycles (a very interesting study). It helps to connect with the rest of who you are - your heart, your gut, your spirit, and get out of the busy overthinking, worrying, calculating mind that has become way too dependent on manmade, digital precision of industrialized time, stay present in each precious moment, the only place where life exists, surrender to what you can not control of the natural world anyway, and learn ways to self relax and tap into a state of inner calm (why I love yoga and mindfulness so much). As a midwife, I certainly have other date assessment skills I use, and other suggestions to help each mama on a more personal level, but these are great places mamas can start. But no obstetrical provider or any human, can predict when a mama will go into labor. So one of the great lessons of pregnancy is being ok with not knowing. Might as well enjoy the journey, as this is as real as life gets.
Art by Catie Atkinson @spiritysol.
But in today's times, I do feel compelled to debunk some myths. As I indicated above, the due date is not written in stone. It is an estimate around an average time of when mamas go into labor, plus or minus a few weeks on either side. Although I like referring to the 'due month', that has not taken hold in the modern obstetric community, obsessed with measurements. At least we can use it between us and with your extended families, who tend to call you every day after your estimated due date, to find out if you had your baby yet. Yes, now we have ultrasound that, if done in the first trimester by a practitioner with expertise in pregnancy dating, the accuracy of the estimated due date increases a bit. But not all mamas want a sonogram. Again, only about 5% of babies are born on their estimated due dates anyway. And it is often miscalculated, if based alone on the first date of the last menstrual period. That date calculation only applies if a mama’s cycle comes every 28 days, assuming she ovulated day 14, and that still could mean baby could be born on average between 37 and 42 weeks. Healthy term babies can also be born before or after this time frame.
This is my pregnancy dating wheel that has been with me as long as I can remember. Now its online. I like the ones that take cycle length and date of conception into consideration. Most women having regular cycles have variation, with sometimes as much as 21-45 days between them. And that is normal. There are many factors such as stress, illness & travel, that can prolong the time between last period and next ovulation, but once a women ovulates, the next period comes close to 14 days later - unless she conceived shortly before or at ovulation.
As a nurse since 1985 and a midwife for over 20 years, I meet many women who are well informed and know their bodies and histories, and many who are not familiar but are very eager to get empowered and learn more. I have had plenty of women know their exact date of conception from fertility treatments and go into labor weeks before or after their due dates. I have had women who knew exactly when they conceived as they were keeping track, only had intercourse at or before ovulation once as for example they were or partner were busy or not together. And they give birth close to estimated due date. Each mama and story is different. And I have had women not have a clue about their cycles or when they got pregnant. But more often than realized, modern medicine does not know nearly as much as people might expect. Women can empower themselves with some knowledge and they have more wisdom than they think; too much trust is often placed in technology and 'experts' over themselves. I question the value of of having to be so accurate with exact calculations when it comes to healthy women experiencing healthy pregnancies. These are illusions, manmade constructs, industrialized time applied to horticultural biological time that no human can control or predict. This is a fascinating study and discussion if one has an open mind to consider other perspectives, and the more I practice the humbler I become, the more awe I have in a process that has far more wisdom and power than any human being, no matter what their training and background.
Oh the journey of waiting and not knowing when, has been a journey traveled by billions of women since the beginning of time - it's part of the sacred wonder and surprises along the way. Welcome to the Tribe De Mama where we get more and more familiar with nature's own clock, realize there is so much we can not control, and get comfortable with not knowing.
This gorgeous shot of @heidijohnson13 was captured by darling mama's sister @sarahandthewave.
For personal questions and need for individual guidance you can schedule an online consultation with me- this is one of passions and areas of expertise. Many mamas ask to consult with me about their fears of going past their due date, & want to know what they can do, as they don't want to be medically induced & have the barrage of testing which can cause much angst, and the subsequent interventions which increase risk of cesarean. I love helping mamas in person, and now with this global IG community, via Skype or phone conversation. You can also take my unique online ROCK and LOVE YOUR BIRTH course, which basically guides you through your pregnancy to birth and postpartum journey, as I guide the families in my midwifery practice - without the hands on care, to prepare and plan for an experience of their dreams.
Photo by Megan Hancock Photography
Let Me Help You Create The Happiest Birth Experience Of Your Life...
Whether you're a first time or experienced momma,
Or a midwife, doula, or birth professional guiding mommas..
Regardless if you are planning a birth at home, a hospital, a birth center or need a cesarean section, or if you are taking another childbirth education class…
You Really Can Create The Delivery Of Your Dreams.
And have a blissful birth wherever you are.
More Precious Than A Wedding...A Birth Should Be A Celebration!
Let me show you how to…
Understand the sensations of your body and connect your intuition with how your body is communicating and leading you towards what to do during labor
Tap into your inner calm to deeply relax yourself,letting go of busy, stressful and fearful thoughts on demand for the health of baby
Speak your truth from your heart in a way that deepens your relationships, sets clear boundaries, and has people listen to you and support you before, during and after pregnancy
Trust yourself, connect with your body wisdom andcommunicate with baby in belly
Connect with natural time and sync your body and mind up with your unique biological clock for ease from pregnancy to postpartum
Reprogram negative patterns, stories, and beliefs that undermine your confidence, strength and self trust so you can rock your birth
Physicians and midwives around the world recommend my teachings to their pregnant clients and many Doulas across the country learn the secrets of blissful birthing from me to supplement their Doula Training & Certification process!
To learn more, visit: LOVE YOUR BIRTH Online Childbirth Course!
It is based on my years of experience, as a midwife and yoga teacher, helping thousands of women tap into their calm and live and birth from a place of grounded relaxation and joy.
Do you need supplements for preconception and pregnancy? Here are some of my favorite I recommend to mamas in my practice.
Make your Red Raspberry Leaf and Nettle herbal infusion.....rich in needed nutrients and specifically nourishing for pregnancy, birth and postpartum. Place 1 oz of dried red raspberry leaf, 1 oz of dried nettle leaf in a quart-sized glass canning jar with strainer, fill it with boiling water, cover and steep for at least 2 -4 hours at room temperature. Strain and place in a covered pitcher. You can make it in larger quantities and store in the fridge. For taste, dilute with water or steep for less time (but no less than half an hour), add lemon or lime juice, mint leaves or a teaspoon of honey. Drink 1-4 cups daily hot or cold.
