Indigo Forest

06/17/2024

Celebrating Fathers and appreciating the “fathering“ that many loving and generous men bring to children and families around them. I was one of the children of the world that greatly benefited from the fathering care shared by “family men”, and my children are also beneficiaries of ‘adopted uncles.’
💙✨🙌

06/11/2024

Here’s a starting place for your conversation with your potential maternity care provider. Many women do not realize that the foundation of their natural birth begins literally in their own mind, with their own education, and also with their first prenatal…

Who you choose to help you with the birth of your baby has a profound influence on your entire year, and your birth. Except that your birth is not the finish line!! Your birth is the first day… Of 20 years and forever.

This person/team/facility means you will feel supported at the end of pregnancy, softened, content, and optimistic. Or they can leave a mother feeling discouraged after each prenatal, on the defensive, anxious and spending a lot of energy recovering from their interactions negotiations to get her wishes heard.

Talk with Experien Smothers around you, or Doula’s in your community. There are people eager to help you have a healthy and happy journey. If you’re birthing, medically, there is NO protection for normal or natural birthing built-in.💗

06/09/2024

💙This is our starting spot.
💙The foundation.
💙Lost in recent times but being reclaimed!

💙And also - ✨knowing normal✨ - is one of the reasons that investing in childbirth education and in professional labor support, like a Doula, can improve your outcome so tremendously! Together, you will know and trust normal more than the medical system or doctors ( surgical specialists who have rarely sat with a normally birthing woman from beginning to end.)

At least, having an experienced, confident labor companion present (to support you AND your mate). Traditionally, this has been an experienced mother or other loving female relative/friend.

💙 A good time to team up!!💪

06/06/2024

Our babies are always communicating with their expressions and their body language. This is a great primer for new parents to bring some insight to their newest family member!

06/04/2024

♥️Mothers have information and details about herself and her baby that cannot be gleaned from any technological intrusion or test.

🔥One of the high costs of the ubiquitous use of ultrasounds is that practitioners have come to believe that they don’t need any input from the pregnant mother about her own health or well-being.

♥️And even worse, mothers have unfortunately come to believe this as well.✨

06/01/2024

♥️ IF safety is the main criteria for where a mama having a normal healthy pregnancy “should birth“, Home is usually the safest BY FAR.

♥️Of course, this is only true if she also FEELS like it’s safe (in all the ways). Her mental experience matters so much.

♥️Obviously, where a mother chooses to birth in the United States is influenced by innumerable variables- including finances, family beliefs, cultural support, mental ease, access to skilled homebirth midwives, education, even just knowing that there could be options.

♥️ Maybe together we can normalize the conversation about options. Which begins the powerful correction and reframe of birth as a normal physiological event!

06/01/2024

♥️ If safety is the main criteria for where a mama having a normal healthy pregnancy “should birth“, Home is usually the safest BY FAR.

♥️Of course, this is only true if she also FEELS like it’s safe (in all the ways). Her mental experience matters so much.

♥️Obviously, where a mother chooses to birth in the United States is influenced by innumerable variables- including finances, family beliefs, cultural support, mental ease, access to skilled homebirth midwives, education, even just knowing that there could be options.

♥️ Maybe together we can normalize the conversation about options. Which begins the powerful correction and reframe of birth as a normal physiological event!

05/28/2024

♥️“Yielding, but relentless.” ♥️

I’ve been awed by the eloquence and passion of so many of you that responded to my invite (in Stories) to share your perspectives & advice on “Pain in Labor“.

We collectively share so much wisdom & experience from our journeys. I love how your input as changed the tone of the Pain Chapter in my upcoming childbirth course. Those of you want to continue to chime in, we would love to hear your perspectives! ♥️

05/26/2024

💙 Mastitis is an inflammation of the breast, usually caused by infection. It may bring pain, swelling, warm, redness, fever and/or chills.

💙There are many helpful naturopathic approaches, which absolutely include no compression from overly tight bras or clothing, and a lot more rest (go back to bed!😘). All immune support that you prefer, such as vitamin C and herbs, are also great. I like using a range of approaches…

💙Homeopathy is safe, practical, inexpensive, and potent treatment through micro dosing. Its effectiveness over the years in my practice has been phenomenal!

Save this one and be familiar with the options if you’re a breast-feeding mom, or have friends in this season of life.✨💙✨

05/23/2024

This is why experiencing quality support, being empowered with information, hiring providers that are wise and respectful, birthing in a setting that works for you… All matter for safety, as well as satisfaction!

05/21/2024

✨💙Pro tips for everyone✨. Save and share - These are simple remedies here that are easy to have in your hospital bag, birth kit, Doula tools, or Midwife remedies. (And have many common uses in labor, birth and postpartum.)

05/19/2024

🩵Babies in utero. 🩵Women in labor. 🩵Newborns at birth. 🩵Midwives about their profession. 🩵In our relationships. 🩵As we parent. 🩵With our OWN parents!…. 🩵The list is very long, isn’t it?

I was fortunate in that my first midwife apprenticeship included Harriette’s guidance and wisdom. Her watchful and listening ways, and artist’s sight, has always offered astute insights.♥️♥️

05/15/2024

Had an absolute BLAST with Ginny of 1000 Outside on this brand new podcast. Let me know what you think about it! (and there's a free download too).

05/14/2024

🍃 Postpartum herbal baths are safe and amazing for newborns as well. Properly done, with the included salt and natural cleaning of the tub, mean the astringent herbs help to swiftly heal and seal the gooey, stinky cord site in the first week.

🍃 Herbal baths are the ONLY cord care my midwifery clients have done for decades! They 💕 LOVE 💕 them!! Most common is for mom & babe to take a bath every night in the first week, or every other night in the first few weeks. And the babies love them too! 👣💕

05/08/2024

DON'T LOSE MICHIGAN BIRTH AUTONOMY! Another birth bill has been introduced- you may want your voices heard asap! (PLEASE!)

'Birth Detroit' has, for the second time, pushed for a bill to be introduced that would essentially put the 6 independent birth centers currently open in Michigan (small business, owned/operated by local CPM/LM) out of business due to the AABC standards they are promoting (for themselves?) - which if you read those- don’t allow for breech, twin and Post dates! These normal variations would disqualify clients from center births! Also, the fees are high, and there are all kinds of extra facility regulations beyond the scale of these small businesses providing safe and healthy births in their local communities. Below is a sample letter, adjust accordingly and please consider speaking out this week. Links in comments.

05/07/2024

Beautiful celebration of the wonderful Penny Simkin, who mothered 'DOULA' into our modern birth world.

Penny Simkin, the woman who helped spark the doula movement by providing support and comfort for families in the delivery room and after childbirth, has died at 85. NBC’s Joe Fryer remembers a life well lived on Sunday TODAY.

05/03/2024

Round ligament pain- understanding where it comes from helps moms find their best solution. Stroking up the sides of the uterus is one of the most helpful.

04/29/2024

The benefits of childbirth education classes almost always include much better outcomes in a range of ways. Studies show a variety of responses depending on the approach. I wasn’t impressed with the limited amount and scale of studies, must not be the most profitable or sexiest topic.🤣

Most doulas and midwives would share their experiences, though, of their clients reporting a lot more comfort mentally, physically, and with decision-making from the education they’ve received through their care.🩵

04/27/2024

My soap box. So nicely said❤️

Babies should always be dressed one layer warmer than mama.🌸

04/14/2024

🌟Read the whole quote, it’s not just the casual soundbites to which we’ve become accustomed to.

✨Found this on a magnificent list from my childhood education handouts from the late 90s. It’s true, my children bloomed the more I trusted them, and stood by them to witness if necessary, their problem-solving.

✨It’s become our cultural habit to rescue our children from anything strenuous. Including emotional work, striving for big goals, having to wait patiently, including even just waiting until we get home to eat. I was speaking to one of my past clients this week as she drove four hours with her five kids. There were no snacks on the drive, they generally don’t eat in the car. They are some of the most well behaved and pleasant to be around kids I’ve ever met.

✨This is actually a pretty important aspect of us, parenting our children into capable, independent and resource for adults.

🌟How do you facilitate your children’s capabilities through your parenting? 💛

04/13/2024

🍃 I invented these labor cubes years ago for some clients who were birthing medically, and wanted herbal support and alternatives in that setting.

🍃 Unfortunately, some medical settings are still uninformed, and pressuring women to do the mighty work of labor on just poor quality “clear liquids“. These herbal ice cubes are easy to chomp, because they slush up easily from the honey. The extra strong red raspberry is fuel particularly for the uterus, and the ‘labor cubes’ have been remarkably effective for bringing that burst of energy at the end when it’s often needed.

🍃 Report back in if you give it a try!💗

04/11/2024

Proud to be on the 1000 Hours Outside Podcast! Ginny and I had a great discussion on Creating Rhythm for our families. JUST OUT!

04/06/2024

“Birth, like death, is an intimate part of life, unique to the individual, and in most cases does not require the medical interventions and control we have been told is necessary. It is high illusion to imagine that we, as humans, can control this process. To instead show deep respect, awe, and trusting surrender is more appropriate, and in alignment with this amazing right of passage.”

~ Barbara Harper, champion of water, birth and gentle undisturbed birth.
Founder of Waterbirth International 1988.

03/31/2024

💫 Babies tend to take the path of least resistance as they rotate down and out during labor and birth.
💫 One of the ways a medical birth setting quietly and passively changes birth is with furniture and design. In a barren room with an industrial floor, the bed may appear to be the only comfortable or seemingly appropriate place to be. When we are cowed by authority, intimidated by an unfamiliar setting, and doing intimate, biological work in the face of strangers… We tend to respond to the cues, even when they’re unspoken.

💫 However, crawling into bed to have a baby makes us more of a patient, and can literally delay or complicate our birth. It’s not that laying down is never a great idea. During birth, it’s often briefly wondrous! But it’s wondrous when moms need and want it. Not when they are being well-behaved, or helpful to the staff and employees whose job it is to care for them through their birth process.

💗 in the course of four decades of midwifing, I have seen mothers get into positions that I literally had to make up a name for on the birth records. And yet, in retrospect, we could see that was the only way to get out an extremely quirky, complicated, or tangled position.

💫 Birth is made to work if no one‘s there.
A great guiding foundation is to always sensitively staying out of their way, and to prioritize their instincts over our habits.🩵

03/21/2024

New parents can feel intimidated as they hire a pediatrician for the first time. It’s important for them to understand that parents must always be at the head of their child’s health care team, and the key is to ask lots of questions.

03/17/2024

🩵A pregnant women woman’s anatomy is quite stunning. Thanks to Penny Simpkin’s “The Birth Partner“ for this beautiful image.

This full-term baby is “engaged”, which we can presume in this picture in part by the status of her bladder. Look closely. 🧐😉😍. at the end of pregnancy mothers trips to the restroom, resume the frequency of the first trimester, and this is why. But it has given her ribs a little more room there at the end, hopefully.

03/14/2024

🩵Women have always found creative “relaxation, rhythm, and ritual” techniques, to cope with pain and stress in labor, as Penny Simkin famously taught.

🩵What did you do in labor to cope? Midwives and doulas, what kind of rhythm do you see your clients getting into? What’s the funniest or most amazing coping pattern you’ve seen? I want saw the most powerful 16-year-old laboring mama, singing choir warm-up scales, while sitting sideways in the bathtub. These stories help to inform the next generation of birthing mothers!

🩵There’s no one right way to approach one’s sensations of labor. Starting the conversation, though, certainly helps…

12/15/2023

🌺Modern life has lost much of this awareness, and the sweet craft of how to assist the healing of the whole person.

🌼If we can switch gears from illness as a tremendous annoyance, to possibly a message and an opportunity… There’s a whole new world there. And it results in less stressed families, and healthier children.

🌹 it’s much more than a soundbite to get our head around this in a workable and even fun way. One whole chapter and video in ‘Get Well Soon’, my new online course, focuses on this important nuance.

🍃To help reclaim practical healing for our families, the course is all about natural approaches to everyday family illnesses. The reviews are GREAT! Check them out on the Get Well Soon page of my website, indigoforest.com.
of course, in my profile, you can also find the link that take you there also.💖💖💖

12/10/2023

The difference between a midwife and an obstetrician is simpler than most people realize.

Midwives are experts in normal birth, and focus on the whole woman. They are primary care providers.

Obstetricians are surgeons who focus primarily on one organ, the uterus, and whose expertise is the pathology of birth. They have also become primary care providers; but as a profession they are not experts in the normal, everyday birth process.

This difference in training and emphasis results in vastly different care and experiences for both mother and baby. One of my clients is herself a physician, and ended up (to her great surprise) exploring homebirth with me because her own facility would not allow her to have a VBAC. (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean). After the smooth and safe birth of her 11 # baby with me at home (😳😆😍), she wrote one of my most favorite comments ever:

“I knew that the care (with a midwife) would be different, but I had no idea that it would be so much BETTER! This has changed how I will practice medicine forever.”

12/08/2023

🌼Skin-to-skin immediately post birth can protect a physically vulnerable baby, and protect a vulnerable mother-baby unit. Many supportive actions can be done with baby on or next to mama, even helping the baby to inflate its lungs if it’s struggling a bit.

💛In the hours and days that follow, this immature mammal baby thrives cuddled into the chest of its mom, and sometimes dad, staying warm and connected. In this early window, baby literally relies on physical contact with its parent to regulate its vital signs. So if they’re a little bit wobbly, lean back, let them settle in your chest, and keep both of you warm. (it goes without saying I’m not suggesting ignoring a medical situation.)

🌟I know questions of sleeping are going to flood this post🥳🥰♥️. I’m not going there today on social media, preferred to discuss live someday. Here in the US, public policy is very adamant about babies sleeping separately. Education is always the name of the game! Some solid information on safe infant sleep can be found at
www.CoSleeping.nd.edu
(i’ll put it in the bio link to make it easy too.)