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Prana_doulaservices, Gold Coast (2025)

30/06/2021

💡YOU DON’T HAVE TO SUFFER THROUGH NATURAL CHILDBIRTH!

I often hear mums saying that they fear natural childbirth because they don't want to suffer.

Childbirth does normally involve some level of pain for most women. Even though some mums choose to change the word pain for pressure or intensity, the reality is that most of us will experience what we know as pain.

But when we think about suffering, it is normally associated with a negative emotional reaction, and includes any of the following factors:
🛑A perceived threat to the body and/or psyche;
🛑Feeling helplessness;
🛑Loss of control;
🛑Distress;
🛑Inability to cope with the distressing situation;
🛑Fear of death.

Just because you are experiencing pain, you're not necessarily suffering. As long as you feel:

✨Supported
✨Safe
✨Held
✨In control
✨Loved
✨Encouraged

A woman who understands her journey, and feels emotionally and physically supported in childbearing can still experience pain, but she ain't suffering.

Life is a journey fulfilled with intense experiences that give us opportunities to develop and grow in different levels of our beings. As a woman, we experience the most significant ones often around our 'Rite of Passages' such as childbirth. These experiences will teach us important things about ourselves, that will become essential tools through the next stages of life.🤍

When I hear birthing partners especially dads, saying they felt helpless to see their partners "suffering" through childbirth, it becomes clear that they simply didn't understand the birthing process, and by that they missed a unique and powerful opportunity of transforming themselves, through the process.🖤

You are stronger than you will ever know before you become a mother, no matter how you birth your baby.

Having pain medication or not, isn't what defines you as a woman. What matters is, WHY and HOW you made that choice. ✨😍

29/06/2021

I guess there is a large portion of the population that chooses hospitals to birth because they feel safer in a hospital environment, right?

Absolutely, it does make sense, BUT you are still responsible for what kind of experience you will have.

✨Let me explain:

REASON 1- Even in a hospital setting, YOU ARE BIRTHING YOUR BABY! That is right, not the midwife, not the doctor, not the nurses... YOU, MUM, is birthing your baby! The care providers are there to support you and help if needed. Take charge of your responsibility, it's only the first one as a parent! You and your birthing partner are a team! 🥰

REASON 2 - Hospital birth has guidelines and procedures based on what's seen as "normal" and "safer" from their perspective. These procedures are not necessarily related to you or your baby specifically. Sometimes there are unnecessary and even wrong interventions that will affect your experience. To make it personal, you must ask the right questions. Use your BRAIN (read post on my feed) 👏🏼

REASON 3 - Birthing a baby is hard work in all senses, it's a very deep transformation for all involved and it takes not only physical but also emotional skills. Feeling safe is one of the main "must-haves" in childbearing. So If you have someone making decisions that you have no idea about on your behalf, feeling safe is not easy task! 🤔

REASON 4 - Care providers are people, just like everybody. They have different opinions from each other and sure they have different opinions from you. They are there to assist you but if you don't know the basics, they will treat you like they were instructed to by the institution. Again, the system considers the whole, but that may not apply to you.

REASON 5 - At the end of the day, you will own your experience whether you like it or not. Been a parent is about making hard decisions too. You wouldn't choose a school for your child only based on the school teacher's opinion, right? At the end of the birthing experience, you are the one taking your baby and emotions home!

That is a day that will remain with you forever, look after yourselves! 🤍✨

27/06/2021

To TEA or not to TEA?! 🫖☕️
Almost every pregnant woman hears about drinking Raspberry Leaf Tea but do you know Why? How? When?

🤷🏻‍♀️ Why?
Well, hear me out!🙇🏻‍♀️

Raspberry Leaf Tea may not be as yummy as a Raspberry Tea, I feel you! But hey, the leaf tea is an amazing source of vitamins and minerals that improve the strength of the uterus and pelvis area. Containing Vitamin C, E and A, a varsity of B vitamins, Magnesium, Potassium, Calcium and Phosphorus.👏🏼😍

This herbal tea also know as the woman’s herb, has been used for centuries to improve respiratory, digestive and uterine health particularly during pregnancy and birth.

Check some of the amazing benefits of this amazing tonic:

✨ May reduce morning sickness
✨ Improve the effectiveness of contractions
✨ Improve the strength of the Aminiotic sac
✨ It can make labour shorter and less painful as it improves uterine muscle quality
✨ Reduces the chance of interventions such as emergency caesarean births and instrumental delivery
✨ Helps preventing postpartum hemorrhage

📖 How?

Raspberry leaf can be found in different forms
such as a tablet, tea bags, loose leaf or as a tincture.

💊The indicated doses on tablets will vary from brand to brand depending in its composition but it’s normally around 2 tablets of 300mg to 400mg three time daily.

🌡The tincture has alcohol in its composition so that will depend on its strength

🫖Tea bags and leafy tea should start as little as 1 a day building up to the equivalent to a 4-5 tea bags.

🕰 When?

Always checking with your care provider you can start any time during the end of second trimestre with 1 cup of tea a day. Watch how your body behaves and only increase the dose little by little from 32 weeks, always observing any uterus responses.

You can still enjoy your tea during postpartum too ☕️🙌🏼🫖👩🏽‍🍼

25/06/2021

Why is it so hard for us to believe in nature the same way as we did to develop our child into our wombs when it comes to birth?

I bet you don’t wake up in the morning during pregnancy thinking you need extra calcium on that day to develop some specific bones on your baby, right?! You simply trust your body and your baby are working together to create his/her life ✨🙌🏼

Toward the end of pregnancy the moods won’t be the same, the social pressure, family and friends questions will feel a lot heavier 😒🥵

Creating life is a miracle, you baby is doing an amazing job in guiding your body on what he needs the most. The placenta is a magical bond that will make sure your brain hear everything is needed from your baby. Your heart is right there connected to every movement in every way.

Allow yourself to trust! Don’t rush if not needed simply because culture and the system keep imposing timeframes as if we were machines.

I bet you’re not the same woman today as you were last month, I bet your circles are different than mine. So how can we impose our bodies to fit in so madly when it comes to the very end of pregnancy? There will be so much you leave behind in this journey, there will be no you as you know on the other side, each step is precious for you to navigate this transformation with ease.

Breath deeply into your belly, open your heart, ask your baby questions and you shall receive answers 🙌🏼✨👼🏻

Enjoy the journey 🤍

25/06/2021

During pregnancy there are changes on how the body works.

✨Blood vessels open wider to accommodate 50% increase of blood.
✨Blood pressure lowers to handle the extra blood
✨There are changes in the brain that alter, giving priority to the parasympathetic nervous system and the right hemisphere of the brain.

Yes!!! It does affect how you thing, and yes, this is commonly known as "baby brain" 🤯🧠🙆🏼‍♀️🙈

The right hemisphere is holistic, emotional, creative, metaphorical and very intuitive. It also hold the memories of our onw births and early childhood imprints.

❓Have you ever considered starting your journey asking your mother how was your birth? Or even deeper if she can tell you about the conception.
Ladies, there are some serious clues right there!

How often do we hear that pregnant women are too sensitive, too emotional? The slow abandonment of the rational will surely bring some important questions that are often ignored under the excuse that pregnancy makes you hysterical and a bit non sense.🥵

In reality, what happens is that you mind, knowing the fears stored in your brain and in your womb, brings them to the surface, for you to see and deal with them. All those questions, fear and the vulnerability comes to play during pregnancy so you can bring them to light before childbirth. How amazing is that?

Emotions, thoughts and physical symptoms are messages from your subconscious mind about the issues you should be taking the 9 months to deal with. These questions will arise sooner or later in life, but its so much easier to deal with them before labour and before you become a mother of a new being. So please do not accept what society tells you and don't miss the opportunity to clean those channels, because if you don't they tend to come back during labour. If you thought it was hard to look at it during pregnancy, ill tell you, think again!

❓If you baby is still in the womb, what lessons are there for you to learn? If you baby is here, what have you learned about yourself?

Take the time to connect and to know yourself, because you’ll miss that 🤍✨

👏🏼Inspiration and knowledge comes from the amazing on the pregnancy Inner Journey e-course
👏🏼Quote is from the Right of the Womb, extracted from Rise Sister Rise by Rebeca Campbell

24/06/2021

No one like our loved ones can best help us with increasing Oxytocin levels, making that, as probably the main task of a birthing companion.

Get involved before birth!

Take mental notes of special moments that both of you shared that putts a smile on your face and fills your heat with joy. Those beautiful memories when remembered will not only help Oxytocin, Endorphins and Prolactin hormones to be produced but will also assist in keeping hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol to remain low.

For the time you are laboring at home, think of her preferred little corner and create a nice atmosphere with plants, candles and images.

If you’re later going to hospital or birth center, bring along special objects, fairy lights, photos and that magical massage oil!

Was was your favorite Oxytocin pump during childbirth?😍💉

23/06/2021

Oxytocin the Drug of Love 🤍💉🤍

Syntocin is commonly used to induce labour or it can also be offered after labor has initiated spontaneously in order to increase contractions.

In hospital setting we, unfortunately, often hear the term "failure to progress". It is said that a mother “fails to progres” when her body progress does not match the expectations imposed by the system she’s birthing in. This sentence alone is a crime against mothers oxytocin levels 😔

When that happens, it's normally recommended that the mother receives Syntocinon, a man-made chemical that stimulates stronger contractions in the uterus. Those contractions can definitely help things to progress quicker, but they can often cause contractions to become too close together and too strong, not giving the uterus enough time to recover.

Some babies don't respond very well to the stimulus, causing fetal distress and requiring more interventions such an emergency caesarean to avoid further distress.

Often mothers find a lot harder to cope with the pain caused by stronger contractions, furthermore the Endorphin levels that were rising along with the Oxytocin to help with pain management are no longer being produced the same way. To help mother coping with the pain, more drugs, normally come into play.

Once synthetic drugs are in action, the mother's natural response gets affected and interventions will potentially become more and more required causing what we know as a cascade of interventions.

When you accept Syntocin make sure to understand why it’s been offered, what are the benefits and risks and specially what other choices you have. 🤍✨ Use your BRAIN!

And before any intervention, take some time alone to bond with your birthing partner and hopefully increase these levels naturally!

Stay tuned for 5 tips that can help mumma to increase level of Oxytocin naturally ☺️🙌🏼

16/06/2021

with
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In order to birth your baby your cervix has to dilate (open) and thin (efface) and the baby has to come down into the pelvis! It starts closed and opens cm by cm until eventually you reach 10 cm meaning there’s no cervix left keeping the baby inside! ⁣
⁣
Have you been told you’re “only” 1 cm or even closed?! NO FEAR!! Your cervix can start changing at any moment (hopefully after 37 weeks) - ANY dilation prior to labor is extra credit! ⁣
⁣
Want more? I have a new YouTube Video all about cervical dilation you can check out on my channel! (Link in bio or search Sarah Lavonne). I even give you tips to help make them easier! ⁣
⁣
How dilated were you on your first exam? (Also, your provider would have MUCH shorter nails!! I'm not checking patients right now! 😆😘)

18/05/2021

Expansion! ✨Visualisation helps woman to relax and assists with fear and pain management!choose your best tools for birth 💗

11/05/2021

Who’s your tribe?

Do you realise that the people you choose to invite into your birthing space will impact your experience?

A few tips on how to find your tribe🌈

✨ make sure your support team know everything you want your experience to be

✨ share your knowledge and education with them

✨ the vibe is everything! They have to be familiar and comfortable with your choices

✨ they need to support you, no matter what unfolds

✨ they need to understand their role and work on their responsibilities

✨ they should be familiar with a variety of tools to best support you

✨ they need to understand that most of the time they will be your guidance of the outside world, your thermometer, so keeping calm and confident is a must

Childbirth is a very intense spiritual and physical event, you must feel safe and loved in every step of the way 💕 if your loved ones don’t agree with you or if they are not on board to give you unconditional, non judgemental love and support, maybe they aren’t the right choice, and that’s ok! If you can, seek professional help such as a private midwife, student midwife or doula 💜 enjoy your ride, it will be with you FOREVER!

08/05/2021

TO BE A MUM, THE ULTIMATE PRIVILEGE! The forever changing transformational ride of creating and recreating life, of loving beyond imagination, of finding and holding spiritual and physical space where there wasn’t any... 💕

Happy mother day to all mums out there, to my beautiful mum that made my world possible🧡
To all amazing mummas that I have the privilege to walk with, on their first steps 💜
..and finally to all mum kinds, from nature to goddesses, from one end of the world to the other 💛

You’re amazing, just the way you are! Your baby chose you and no matter where you are on this journey, it has changed you for the best and for ever 🤍 HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

05/05/2021

Are you anxious about your baby having his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck? 😱

Grab a cuppa and READ THIS great info from with
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Nuchal Cord
A Nuchal Cord is when the umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby’s neck and it is quite common occurring in 1 in 3 births. It it not an emergency and it is not a reason to suggest a C-section unless there are other indications for concern.
A normal, healthy umbilical cord is filled with Wharton’s jelly, a soft, gelatinous substance which protects the blood vessels inside the cord. This substance helps to protect the cord against compression as well as true knots (which can occur in 1% of births) as a result of normal movements of baby in utero.
Babies receive nutrients and oxygen via the umbilical cord & not through their mouth or nose. Babies don’t actually breath until after the birth when they take their first breath of oxygen into their lungs when they are stimulated by air. And then the midwife or OB will simply loop the cord over the baby’s head when he or she is crowning or shortly after being born. This is another reason why prolonged cord clamping is so important.
The only time that complications may occur is if the cord was not in a good condition, a cord prolapse or if a medical condition was impacting the amount of Wharton’s jelly inside the cord. For the vast majority of babies, the cord is very well protected.
Chat to your care provider, ask questions and be curious to learn more.
Click through to the She Births® website to find out more about the full online course available worldwide or face to face weekends courses.
Image Repost
Copy edited from

29/04/2021

When we start treating childbirth as the miracle that it is, well stop fearing it.
When we allow our girls to work their magic from a young age, they will grown confident of their power.
As young women they will hold their sisters, supporting them through life, pregnancy, postpartum, motherhood and beyond...
Mums will feel held and confident stepping into motherhood.
They will feel loved and empowered as elderly and they will pass it own to the new generation of little witches... The way we birth hold the power to change the world 💜✨
Such a beautiful pic by

with
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Mini midwife in the making 😍🥰♥️
What a precious moment captured so beautifully 🙏🏻✨
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Photo credit

20/04/2021

I could not love this post any more than I do. I’ve been reflecting so much lately on how we were lead to believe that the way we birth, in hospitals is the safest and best way to birth. How did we came to the conclusion that we (our bodies) are the risk factors in childbirth?

with
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Raise your hand if you know what I’m talking about 🙋‍♀️

The FETAL EJECTION REFLEX is the involuntary expulsion of the fetus from the mother’s body. She doesn’t need to push, her body does it for her.

I experienced this with my 2nd & 3rd births. Both births were undisturbed - no strangers, bright lights, monitors, intrusion. Just my body & my baby working together.

FER felt like I was vomiting, but out of my va**na. It was uncontrollable - just as the body contracts to force out vomit (and it can’t be stopped), my body contracted down so hard that I could no longer speak. In two contractions (one for the head, one for the body), each baby was born.

Most people don’t experience FER with their birth. In a hospital setting you're met with intrusions at every turn, and this tells your body that you’re not in a safe place. FER is very unlikely to happen in this environment.

“On an intellectual level, a woman may believe that the hospital is a safe, protected environment, but her body reacts quite differently.”

“During the 2nd stage of labor, if the hormone orchestration of normal labor has been altered (e.g., by the use of Pitocin or epidural analgesia), the fetal ejection reflex does not occur.”

“...parturition (birth) is an involuntary process, and an involuntary process cannot be helped. The point is to not disturb it.” - Michel Odent, MD

In nature, other mammals seek out a quiet, safe space to give birth. If disturbed, labor can slow or stop completely until they feel safe again.

Did you experience fetal ejection reflex with any of your births?

All quotes are from the following article: Do Not Disturb: The Importance of Privacy in Labor

13/04/2021

I love when I find amazing useful and inclusive facts to share!

Belly Birth save lives, but it does other things too, informe educate yourself! 💙

with
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April is International Cesarean Awareness Month!!

Cesarean Birth. C-Section.

This movement has multiple facets to be fully inclusive and I’ve added some points:

🌼 Reduce unnecessary surgeries and risks when possible

🌼 Encourage this surgery when necessary or the best medical option

🌼 Recognize it is a full birthing experience and reduce shame when comparing to va**nal birth. Both are births.

🌼 Support those who have had C-section births with specific education about care after this surgery. We can do so much!

🌼 Provide support needed, increase knowledge about VBAC options when suitable and desired.

🌼 Someone who has had a Cesarean section birth may still have prolapse, pelvic floor dysfunction, or urinary/fecal issues. We should still screen for this- in addition to the abdominal wall.

🌼 “Since the 2000s, analyses from developed countries have found that women of lower socioeconomic position are more likely than their better-off counterparts to have cesarean deliveries. In France, Guihard and Blondel report that women with a low level of education have a higher risk of cesarean deliveries.” (Milcent, C & Zbiri, S, 2018). We must continue to work on the inequalities and access in maternal health care.

Repost of one of our most popular IG posts over the past few years!
・・・
Well done! 👏 Demo of layers involved in a c-section birth and how it is done. *Notice the vertical cut at the abdominal muscles and peritoneum.

(Credit to: Vbac or Bust on FB)

07/04/2021

Supporting a mum in labour comes in many different ways, forms and shapes. This double hip squeeze can be done with the rebozo or even with two hands, like this mumma is having. It provides the mum some release in the pressure baby’s head puts on the sacrum as the head descends, and also allows the baby a little extra wriggle room to move down.

💜
make_repost
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That double hip squeeze in labor IYKYK

06/04/2021

Often I get asked about great tips during pregnancy, so I thought I would start a series of posts called Why? When? & How?

I will talk about a few interesting tools we can use to help nature (your body) on childbirth. 💜

Since we are all enjoying Easter eggs and most of us can probably use a little detox next week, I’m gonna start with this amazing little pieces of haven and it’s great benefits!

Just a quick note worth mentioning (I’ll do a post on that later). The inflammation processes in the body, trigged by some foods, such as gluten and sugar can increase the mother’s labour. So, specially on the third trimestre, highly recommended that you watch your intake on those. 🧐😬

So, dates... 😍

Why?

⌛️ Randomised control trials has showed that by consuming dates, you can be helping your cervix to soften which may reduce the length of labour thus reducing the interventions on natural childbirth.

🧻 They are a rich source of fibre, so it helps with constipation.

They provide protein and vitamine K which aids in clotting and bones development

Dates also contains Iron which is responsible for maintaining haemoglobin in the body. It also strengths mums and bubs immunity.

Dates are great source of potassium balancing the water-salt, regulates body pressure and muscle cramps.

Blood pressure and sugar levels are also maintained by Magnesium, which is also a great helper to the formation of teeth and bones. Magnesium can also recent preeclampsia, placenta distinction and premature labour.

How?

What’s the best way to eat them?

First of all,‘let’s be clear that the best dates are the Organic Medjool or Deglet Noor, but consider that the Medjool are in general twice as heavy so you may need less. 😌

You can have them in absolute any way you like, you can add to you baking, 🧁 eat them fresh, in smoothies 🥤 or perhaps you can half them add nut butter and a pinch of salt 🥜 or some shredded coconut 🥥

When?

They can be consumed with moderation throughout pregnancy at any time, just remember they are fairly high in sugar. But it’s recommended that you try start eating up to 6 a day (about 75g) at the 36 weeks mark

Prana_doulaservices

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