Mom Glow

07/31/2022

Help the new mom feel healthy and whole in her time after baby is born.

Hold the mother, not the baby.⁣
⁣
Because the baby’s being taken care of—⁣
fed, snuggled, and given all the love in the world—⁣
by not only the mother,⁣
but her partner, grandparents, siblings, cousins, and friends.⁣
⁣
But the mother,⁣
may have gaps in her mind from lack of sleep,⁣
may be mechanical in her motions as she’s healing,⁣
may feel more like a mess than a mother,⁣
may be sitting in bed, crying, feeling overwhelmed in her body and life,⁣
may be full of mom guilt because in her mind, "she's not good enough,"⁣
and she’s bleeding, wincing in pain, swollen and emotional.⁣
⁣
And the mother’s that baby's whole world and needs to be seen, so she doesn't disappear into that postpartum fog.⁣
⁣
So, hold the mother, not the baby.⁣
⁣
A mother agrees that her baby matters more.⁣
But she’s hurting, while she’s the person behind the baby,⁣
in the background, making it all happen:⁣
feeding her baby at all hours,⁣
snuggling her baby close to comfort newborn cries,⁣
and being that baby’s everything.⁣
⁣
So, it’s the mother who needs your love.⁣
⁣
And a mother will remember who held her up.⁣
⁣
So instead of “I’m coming to see the baby,”⁣
try saying, “I’m coming to see you 𝘢𝘯𝘥 meet the baby, too.”⁣
⁣
Because the mother needs to be held more.⁣

📸: This Mama Doodles
....................................................⁣⁣
My Children’s Book 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘖𝘬𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘖𝘬𝘢𝘺: 𝘈𝘥𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘴 𝘎𝘦𝘵 𝘉𝘪𝘨 𝘍𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘛𝘰𝘰 is out everywhere: https://amzn.to/317TvVc

05/29/2022

As doulas, we're here for the mothers.

I Won’t Hold Your Baby

…unless you ask me to, in which case, I will snuggle and cuddle your baby as much as you want me to.

I never ask my clients if I can hold their baby. In fact, I rarely ever touch my client’s baby if I can help it. Sounds sort of like the opposite of what you might picture of a doula, right? We must all be birth crazy, baby obsessed women who just want to cover babies in kisses and love and get an emotional high from attending births?

Not this doula.

I LOVE attending births. Call me crazy, but getting those middle of the night calls is one of my favorite parts of this job. I get to listen to someone at their most vulnerable times - the excitement, the hesitation, the nervousness of the unknown. Being able to provide some comfort, reassurance and continuity of care to the people I work with is so important to me (and them!)

Rushing off in the night, quietly getting myself ready, getting in the car and heading off to their home or hospital makes me feel like I’m on a secret birth mission that nobody around me knows about. When I arrive I fall as seamlessly as I can into the rhythm of the birth and start supporting my clients in whatever way they need most.

When the baby arrives I step aside and leave room for the new parents to discover their baby. I try and grab some photos (I’m not a birth photographer though, so keep your expectations in check!) and then I only step in if my client needs me for some reason.

Why does that matter? Why won’t I ask to hold your baby? Simply because: they are yours, not mine. I want you to be able to hold your baby as close as you want, for as long as you want without anyone interrupting that time. There will be enough people coming along in the next few hours and weeks who need to take that baby out of your arms for whatever reason, and tons of friends and family who will offer help by “holding the baby”.

Instead, I want to hold you, whether that’s in my arms, in my heart or my thoughts. By supporting and “holding” you, I don’t need to hold your baby. But if you ask me to, I would LOVE to.

Written by | Bump and Glow- Montreal Doula Services
Artwork by Spirit Y Sol

05/22/2022

Wish me luck begining my journey into motherhood! See you in September :) Massage appointments still available with Marcela, Margarita & Jaslyn!

Ofelia's having a baby! She's taking time off this summer, but you are in good hands with Marcela, Jaslyn & Margarita. She'll be back in September.

05/01/2022

Time to thank your mom for giving birth to you! Her body is an amazing vehicle to deliver the miracle of life!

xo

04/10/2022

7 years after our holistic doula training with , the gifted Tomecas will be helping me with my very own transition into motherhood as my birth doula! So honored to have you, sister! Birthworker Tomecas Omorose Blessings Doula Services

Learning so much and making amazing connections with beautiful doulas and midwives this weekend. I can't wait to make this leap into this world of helping women have beautiful experiences in child birthing!

04/08/2022

In times of need, we discover what makes so much sense! Read this cool story behind this popular technique to bring baby's head down!

Transverse lie is normal in early pregnancy until about 26 weeks or so. By 29-30 weeks we expect baby to be head down.

The Forward-leaning Inversion is a classic at Spinning Babies® for helping to move baby from transverse. In short, it is a technique that creates room in the lower uterus. The baby can then use that space—with the natural pull of gravity—to snuggle into a more ideal position for birth.

The Forward-leaning Inversion was born out of (no pun intended) a realization of Dr. Carol Phillips during a birth that she attended—and it is to Dr. Carol that we owe the credit for this wonderful technique:

Dr. Carol Phillips, DC, friend and teacher of Gail Tully’s, developed the Forward-leaning Inversion after watching the sudden ease of a birth following a ride down three flights of stairs in a gurney to the ambulance. The mother had been pushing and not able to move the baby. Dr. Carol had done all the techniques she usually saw get good results. So the midwives decided to transfer from the home birth to the hospital and get the baby born there. They just didn’t want mom walking down three flights of stairs at ten cm just in case baby did come out on the stairs. So they called the ambulance crew in to help. They carried mom down on the stretcher headfirst—in case the baby came out on the stairs. When they put the mom into the ambulance, swoosh, out came baby crying and kicking. What made that possible, Carol asked herself? The ride down the stairs head down! What anatomy did that effect?! The utero-sacro ligaments to the cervix! Dr. Carol figured out a posture to replicate the ride this mama took. The Forward-leaning Inversion was born.

As with any other technique in pregnancy and labor, please be sure to have help when doing it. There are medical contraindications to consider, such as high blood pressure or another risk of stroke. You can learn more about the Forward-leaning Inversion on our website, and consider reading it before trying it at home!

https://www.spinningbabies.com/pregnancy-birth/techniques/forward-leaning-inversion/

04/03/2022

I had no idea the placenta is categorized based on its different forms of presentation.

03/17/2022

Big changes are promised for the Big Apple! Great idea to get more doulas supporting healthy moms and babies during birth!

The city’s health department is taking baby steps toward Mayor Eric Adams’ campaign promise to provide coaches known as doulas to all first-time parents giving birth. It’s been talking to maternal...

03/13/2022

Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson spent 12 years of his life taking pictures of the fetus Developing in the womb.

These incredible photographs were taken with conventional cameras with macro lenses, an endoscope and scanning electron microscope.

Nilsson used a magnification of hundreds of thousands and “worked” right in the womb. His first photo of the human fetus was taken in 1965.

Post brought to you by https://ourcultures.org/

02/05/2022

A physiologic labor will allow the "rhomboid of Michaelis" to open, thus allowing the pelvis to widen, leading to childbirth.

"The rhombus of Michaelis (sometimes called the quadrilateral of Michaelis) is a kite-shaped area that includes the three lower lumber vertebrae, the sacrum and that long ligament which reaches down from the base of the scull to the sacrum.

This wedge-shaped area of bone moves backwards during the second stage of labour and as it moves back it pushes the wings of the ilea out, increasing the diameters of the pelvis.

We know it’s happening when the woman’s hands reach upwards (to find something to hold onto, her head goes back and her back arches.

It’s what Sheila Kitzinger (1993) was talking about when she recorded Jamaican midwives saying the baby will not be born ‘till the woman opens her back’.

I’m sure that is what they mean by the ‘opening of the back’. (Wickham and Sutton 2002).

Jean Sutton and I first wrote about the rhombus of Michaelis in 2002. Since then, many thousands of midwives and birth workers have learned about this physiological feature of birth from our article and the conversations that it has sparked.

The original article has been available on my website for several years and I have recently updated it. I’m re-sharing the link to the article today in the hope of spreading this information more widely.

You can read it at https://www.sarawickham.com/articles-2/the-rhombus-of-michaelis/

I hope you’ll find it useful.

Yes, please feel free to share and repost this social media post, with the words and credit intact.

01/16/2022

Having should not prevent you from having close contact with your baby. 👶🏻👶🏼👶🏽👶🏾👶

Early and exclusive breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact is critical for the baby’s health, especially for babies born early or small.

12/12/2021

Here are some things about Pitocin you may not have been told.

10/22/2021

This is the reason for why mothers can be so attached to their child, their cells are interchanged!

“When pregnant, the cells of the baby migrate into the mothers bloodstream and then circle back into the baby, it’s called “fetal-maternal microchimerism”.⁠

For 41 weeks, the cells circulate and merge backwards and forwards, and after the baby is born, many of these cells stay in the mother’s body, leaving a permanent imprint in the mothers tissues, bones, brain, and skin, and often stay there for decades. Every single child a mother has afterwards will leave a similar imprint on her body, too.

Even if a pregnancy doesn't go to full term or if you have an abortion, these cells still migrate into your bloodstream.

Research has shown that if a mother's heart is injured, fetal cells will rush to the site of the injury and change into different types of cells that specialize in mending the heart.

The baby helps repair the mother, while the mother builds the baby.

How cool is that?

This is often why certain illnesses vanish while pregnant.

It’s incredible how mothers bodies protect the baby at all costs, and the baby protects & rebuilds the mother back - so that the baby can develop safely and survive.

Think about crazy cravings for a moment. What was the mother deficient in that the baby made them crave?

Studies have also shown cells from a fetus in a mothers brain 18 years after she gave birth. How amazing is that?”

If you’re a mom you know how you can intuitively feel your child even when they are not there….Well, now there is scientific proof that moms carry them for years and years even after they have given birth to them.

I find this to be so very beautiful.

09/24/2020

This position is super important to help baby get into the right position and decrease the probability of having a csection due to a breach baby. You may start at 20 weeks.

🔥 I have shown this to almost all of my Mamas!

How amazing is this illustration by ! 🙌

The Forward-leaning Inversion!
“Create room in the lower uterus. Baby will use that space, with the natural pull of gravity, to snuggle into a more ideal position for birth.”

05/15/2020

Free range babies are better off :)

02/28/2020

First experience after birth: Umbilical cord jumping, hehe.

02/28/2020

Minnesotan wins national fellowship to teach Indigenous birthing practices By Max Nesterak - January 22, 2020 Facebook Twitter Email Print Dorene Day teaches Indigenous birthing practices across North America. photo courtesy of Dorene Day Dorene Day, an Ojibwe midwife, was one of 10 Indigenous peopl...

02/26/2020

This is one amazing teacher...try to make the class this Sunday in smyrna!

Meet Abbey! I am honored to introduce this lovely caring soul! She is teaching Mom and Baby Postnatal Fitness and Prenatal Yoga this Sunday. Do NOT miss these classes!! Seriously, sign up now! www.thebodybarsmyrna.com Now read on!!

*Abbey is a seasoned yoga teacher, who has been actively teaching yoga since 1998. She has many certifications including E-RYT 500, RPYT, YACEP, LMT, CNMT, Comprehensive Certified Pilates Instructor and that is just the beginning.

*She is the founder and director of Georgia's first registered prenatal yoga teacher training school. (She is my instructor/mentor!!- Kim)

*She has so many more accolades and specializations that I can't list them here but most important she is truly a kind caring loving person who will make you feel accomplished and loved at the same time. A gem!