Kira Waetford - Private Midwife

18/07/2024

Hope to see you there! ❤️

02/01/2024

✨Births Stats 2023✨

Thank you to all my wonderful families who allowed me to walk with them through their transformative journeys of birth in 2023! Your trust and openness allowed for profound connections and shared moments of strength, vulnerability, and pure joy.

Although last year’s transfer rate was higher than usual, I hope you felt supported and safe within my care when birth plans took a detour. Your journeys have enriched my practice and reminded me how important the relationship and connection between a woman and her midwife is.

Thank you to my awesome partner-in-crime, Robyn for the quiet laughs, endless cups of tea and animated car discussion to keep each other awake after a late one.

And thank you to my awesome midwifery colleagues (both in the community & in the hospital) for your support and friendship in helping to make maternity care better for women and their families in our region.

Wishing you all continued love, health, and happiness in 2024.

Kira x

03/01/2023

My 2022 Birth Stats are up!

Thank you to all the beautiful families I had the privilege to walk beside in 2022!

And thank you to all my beautiful midwifery colleagues I get to hang out with along the way xx

Super excited for 2023!!

01/01/2023

Happy New Year 2023!!

Grateful for loving family, good health and new relationships 🙏

Thank you to the 48 beautiful families who welcomed me into their hearts and homes to help bring their new bundles of joy earthside 🌏 and thank you to my awesome 2nd midwives!!

I’m pumped for what 2023 will bring! ✨

Stay tuned for the 2022 stats 😄

27/08/2022

Something to think about before your 36 week appointment…

I don’t recommend Vaginal GBS swabbing during pregnancy for all of my clients… there are some circumstances where it can be helpful, but it’s only occasional.

Your care provider might swab EVERYONE in pregnancy and many hospitals do this. If they do you can be sure they are not following the evidence… because the evidence doesn’t support universal swabbing.

The UK recently (2019) considered introducing universal GBS screening, and after assessing the evidence carefully decided that it couldn’t recommend this practice because the current evidence didn’t support it. So the UK continues not to swab everyone whereas Australia and the US are providing non-evidence based care in the area

So, if you don’t want a vaginal swab to check for GBS in pregnancy, it’s likely that you are making an evidence based decision.

I have made a full information video about the research on my YouTube channel where I break down the current evidence. YouTube @ Melanie the Midwife or you can access it from www.melaniethemidwife.com (link in bio)

18/07/2022

02/07/2022

Another benefit of placenta encapsulation ❤️

In the last trimester, the placenta begins to secrete a corticotropin-releasing hormone, or CRH, which enables the mother to mentally and physically handle extreme amounts of stress; by the time of birth, most mothers have up to three times their pre-pregnancy levels of CRH[1] (or what we like to call the super-hero hormone).

I clearly remember wandering around my home in the postpartum period, unable to figure out how to accomplish my daily tasks because of an inability to act decisively in the presence of normal toddler activity, mess, and demands.

The ability to multi-task, overcome problems, and discover new solutions when obstacles arise are all skills directly affected by CRH hormones.

When the placenta is born, the feedback system that regulated the hormone’s production is interrupted, and the mother is left with only the CRH production of the hypothalamus. Because of this, postpartum mothers have low levels of this stress-fighting hormone making them more vulnerable to depression and less able to perform well under stress.

Studies from the National Institute of Health have found that consuming the placenta stimulates and stabilizes CRH levels. Endocrinologist George Chrousos, who led the NIH study, concluded that since the placenta contains large amounts of orally-active CRH, ingesting the placenta will stabilize CRH levels resulting in “a more stable emotional life for the mother.”[2]

[1] Chrousos, G. “Baby Blues-Postpartum Depression Attributed to Low Levels of Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone After Placenta Is Gone.” Brief Bnet., 1995.

[2] Makrigiannakis A, Zoumakis E, Kalantaridou S, Chrousos G. “Endometrial and Placental CRH As Regulators of Human Embryo Implantation.” Journal of Reproductive Immunology. 62(1-2), 2004, pp 53-9.

18/06/2022

24/05/2022

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