BIRTH SUPPORT
Our services are customized to the needs of the birthing person and their support team. Emotional Support is often defined by helping create a birth plan that includes the birthing person's unique communication style and gives them confidence in voicing their needs. Physical comfort measures can include: massage, labor positions, hydrotherapy, optimal fetal positioning, aromatherapy, acupressure, deep relaxation and visualization techniques. Advocacy includes helping the birthing person to resource the community of birth services and facilitating their birth plan into action. The doula's role is to help the family to find a harmonious new sense of normal with baby. Nurturing the birthing person with physical and emotional comfort measures, while assisting them with discovering their babies cues, breastfeeding. Overnight support, support of families with multiples, and sibling care are also available. Please read more about our postpartum doula packages. Preconception & gestational support includes:
Birth planning
Conscious conception
Fertility support
Bed rest issues
Belly casting
Blessingway
Affirmations
Partner bond
Pain coping techniques
Labor support includes:
Physical comfort measures
Labor positioning for optimal fetal positioning
Pain coping techniques
Labor massage
Facilitation of the birth plan
Customized labor support
Postpartum support also includes:
Breastfeeding Basics
Sibling Support
Baby Care Assistance
Creating a postpartum plan
Postpartum basics for parenting and family
Breastfeeding Support
Breastfeeding is the first challenge after giving birth or lactation and re-lactation
Providing adequate support and encouragement through the critical first weeks is vitally important to building a successful bond. Consider Lifespan Doula Services to be part of the professional support that can help bridge the gap from birth site to home. We provide home consultations, phone support and resources. Yes, we look forward to that 4 am call because we know it’s important! Breastfeeding support includes:
Breastfeeding support at birth
Correct Latch and Positioning
Common Breastfeeding Challenges
Understanding Baby Cues
Understanding if baby is getting enough
Breastfeeding support products
Resources and Referrals for unique needs
Placenta Encapsulation
Your Placenta Contains:
HORMONES:Estrogen, prolacin, oxytocin, cortisol. The placenta contains hormones that may help the body recover from childbirth, increase milk-supply, manage stress and prevent depression and fatigue. If you are sensitive to hormonal changes, having placenta following childbirth has the potential to be enormously helpful in balancing your hormones, which could support you to feel emotionally stable and strong. IRON:The iron present in placenta has greater bioavailability–the mother’s body can easily reabsorb it. Many women are low in iron during pregnancy and following childbirth and placenta may help rebuild your iron stores, which may increase energy, mental clarity and aid in improving your physical recovery.
NUTRIENTS AND MINERALS:Placenta contains other beneficial nutrients and minerals and is considered a superfood. Good postpartum nutrition is key in ensuring a successful recovery.
Placenta Encapsulation Services
For thousands of years, Traditional Chinese Medicine has recognized the placenta as powerful medicine used to increase scanty lactation and tonify Qi, life energy, after the birth. Today, many women look to placenta encapsulation as a natural way to even their hormones after birth and avoid postpartum depression. I use Traditional Chinese Medicine methods to gently steam, dehydrate, powder and encapsulate the placenta. Each placenta is different in size and substance so the amount of capsules it makes can vary from 90 to 200. After 2 weeks you can start to decrease the dosage down to 1 or 2 pills a day as needed. By ingesting your placenta in pill form you can reap the benefits of your placenta medicine without the “yuck” factor that some people feel about cooking and eating it after the birth. Additionally, you get a longer, sustained application over the first month postpartum than if it was ingested immediately after the birth. Some people even save some of their remaining placenta capsules and freeze them for later, as they can be useful during menopause or other physically/hormonally stressful times. Placenta Tincture
These forms of placenta medicine are not as well known as the dried, encapsulated placenta. However, it is so easy to do and has so many potential benefits, that I include it in my placenta preparation. I select a portion of the raw placenta, before I prepare the rest of it for encapsulation, and tincture it in one hundred proof alcohol. After steeping for a while, the placenta solids can be strained off to create a long lasting, pure placenta “mother” tincture which can have a multiplicity of uses. Placenta Prints and Umbilical Heart/Spiral
The prints are done before I wash and prepare the placenta. They are printed with the natural placenta blood on acid-free artists paper. Some families frame them as art or some just choose to save them as personal keepsakes. The prints are unique imprints that displays the size, shape and general appearance of the placenta and also reminds us why the placenta is often referred to as “the tree of life.”
The umbilical heart is the dried umbilical cord in the shape of a heart or spiral. This is another keepsake to save or use any way you like. Some people have cultural or spiritual significance attached to this original connector between mother and child. Other people save it along with baby’s first hair cutting or first tooth. How to Prepare for Placenta Encapsulation
Talk to your care provider about taking your placenta home right after the birth. If you are birthing in a hospital, many of them have a general policy of holding the placenta for 5 to 15 days and then discarding it without notifying you. You will need to make special arrangements with the hospital staff to either release it right away, or have it immediately frozen rather than refrigerated if they insist on keeping it for a while. You are not required to explain why you want your placenta, if you don’t want to. Your placenta legally belongs to you. If, upon admission, you are asked to sign anything regarding care of the afterbirth, you may write “I do not consent” on the form.
