Christina Szrama, Birth Doula

11/17/2019

YES!! Why is breech so feared!?? Because we fear what we don’t know. So don’t stop learning. Health care professionals, that means you! LEARN. Seek experience. Seek knowledge. LEARN TO DELIVER BREECHES.

A breech birth is when a baby is born feet first. It depends on the experience of the provider, but most opt for C-section to deliver breech babies. Betty Ann Daviss is a world-renowned Canadian midwife who’s educating providers on how to do vaginal breech births. Read more about her here.

11/13/2018

https://instagram.com/p/BqIIVPfAmYG/

(compliments of a sweet husband) and a sweet little boy are a good way to overcome what I call “ ”... I slept very hard for 8 hrs after being w a client for over 24 straight hours... I am so sore! But so happy to have been able to be with a woman during one of the greatest triumphs of her life: a joyful spontaneous VBAC despite gestational diabetes, a tricky fetal presentation and a very hard active labor! Women are SO strong!! And this mama had an amazingly sweet and helpful husband by her side, I LOVED watching them work together. My job is hard but I count it a privelege and an honor.

08/21/2018

if you’ve heard rumors that induction at 39 weeks lowers your risk of c-section... this chart helps explain why that may not (probably does not) apply in any helpful way to you. A simple point would be that there are other things that lower your chance of a c-section by FAR MORE than 3-4% (which this study is all about)... for example, choosing a midwifery model of care v an obstetrical model— choosing a hospital with a low c-section rate— not being induced at all — and... **drumroll** having a doula!!

((higher res graphic here))

http://mindfulchildbirthsantacruz.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/ARRIVEinfographic2.pdf

08/11/2018

one of the drums I will beat over & over until I die is the drum of Postpartum Rest. Our culture is so backwards— we treat birth like a medical emergency but then expect moms to be right back at it within a week. We say admiringly “wow you look great! Great job being up & at em!” when we see a new mom at Target with a week old infant and a toddler in tow. Our churches keep right on scheduling new dads for preaching and teaching and sound and money counting, never once checking to make sure the new mom will have help if he is away from her on a weekend. We MIGHT bring meals for a week, but we think a visit is about “seeing the baby” and “getting my baby time” instead of serving the mother. We act like moms are heroic when they carry their toddlers & keep on homeschooling with nary a break...

What we SHOULD do is offer to clean, to plan to babysit and petsit, to bring nutritious meals with zero expectation of holding the baby. We should be expecting new moms to be at home with plenty of support, with dads protecting their wives’ ability to rest instead of giving mom grief for not cleaning or cooking much.

New mamas, I beg you to care for your body & your baby by planning a “lying in” phase of 4-6 weeks. Schedule help for your older kids (people will offer! Take em up on it!! Schedule it!), make food ahead and freeze it, mentally prepare to spend time “just” resting.

Other women, the bulk of the extra care will need to come from you. In most cultures, a lying-in phase is expected, and it’s other women in the mama’s life that facilitate it. Offer to help, and follow through. Most of us with kids can easily bring another friend or two over or to the park for a few hours every Wednesday for three weeks. Offer to give a new mom a ride to appointments. Let a new dad drop his older kids off at your house when he leaves for work. Go stay with your sister for a week after she’s had a baby and actually HELP her. Make meals. Encourage moms when you see them resting.

I did not rest with my first, rested some with my second, and finally fully rested with my third. The difference in mood & healing & energy was incredible!!

Also, no new baby needs public germs!!! New babies need plenty of time to figure out eating, breathing & holding their heads up.

How to enjoy your pregnancy and prepare for a great natural birth, plus how to have a healthy, happy baby!

08/02/2018

one of Dr. Jack Newman (breastfeeding expert pediatrician)’s books on breastfeeding is FREE on the kindle today!

Those who decide to breastfeed are faced with a disturbing lack of good advice and "hands on" help. Their initial determination to breastfeed is too often lost in conflicting solutions being offered and not working. Something they at first imagined should be simple and “natural

07/17/2018

great company for the skin needs of the WHOLE family!

What does it take to make a soap? To answer that let's first get a simple understanding of how soaps work. Chemically speaking, soaps have two "ends" and look kind of like a sewing pin: one end, the "head," loves water ("hydrophilic") and mixes well with water. The other end, the "tail" can't bond w...

05/01/2018

This is a great visual of the size of the open wound inside every woman’s uterus whenever she delivers. Even in the best, uncomplicated birth, moms have a wound this size to heal— PLEASE REST, mamas!!! 4-6 weeks is not unreasonable to be doing nothing but feeding the baby and dressing yourself. Get help!

22cm or 8.6 inches. That is the exact diameter of a paper plate, AKA the fine china in our house. It is also the average diameter of a placenta. After a baby is born, mothers are told to take it easy for at least 4-6 weeks. There are good reasons for that! One of those reasons is that after the baby is born, mothers are left with a wound on the inside of their uterus where the placenta was attached. That wound will take at least 4-6 weeks to completely heal. During that time they are still susceptible to infection and hemorrhaging. Even if they have a complication-free vaginal delivery and feel okay, they will still need to take care of themselves and not overdo it for those first several weeks postpartum. To those mothers, rest! To their husbands, partners, parents, in-laws, friends - let them rest! Help out as much as you can and don’t let them overdo it!

As the saying goes "one week in bed, one week around the bed, and 2 weeks around the house."

Edited to add: I am not a medical professional. This is only meant to be common sense advice to take it easy. I do not mean for women to lay around for 4 weeks not moving at all. Listen to your body and take care of yourself! Talk to your doctor or midwife if you have any questions.

Edited (again) to add: My reason for adding the last paragraph was because some people were commenting that women would get a blood clot if they laid in bed for that long. My point was to say that women should use common sense about what resting means. I did not mean that women should be completely immobile for 1, 2, or 4 weeks. You can rest and spend the majority of your time in bed (or a couch or whatever) without being completely still and causing a blood clot. You can still get up to use the bathroom, get up to eat, go for a short walk, etc. while still spending the majority of the time resting and not doing housework, etc. A strong support system and lots of help from your partner, family, and friends is key.

Also, I believe the problem isn’t that doctors aren’t telling moms to rest for those first few weeks (at least I was told), but the problem is that they aren’t telling them WHY they should be resting. If you read back through the comments on this picture, there are several reasons women give as to why they didn’t rest. A big one is that they didn’t have any help, which is completely understandable. But another big reason is that they knew they were supposed to rest and even had family or friends telling them to rest, but they didn’t listen because they didn’t realize WHY they should rest. And this post is only ONE of the reasons why.

04/24/2018

great guide!!

04/13/2018

Eye ointment... if there is any low-hanging fruit that I’d love to campaign to see gone... it would be eye ointment on all babies at birth.

Eye treatments were started to prevent bacterial eye infections leading to blindness— the bacteria in question being those that cause STDs. Babies can pick these up as they are born vaginally to infected moms with active infections. However, now that we know about STDs, and we screen for them and TREAT moms prior to birth, this practice is another than needs to go the way of the dodo.

If you don’t have chlamydia or gonhorrea, your baby doesn’t need eye ointment.

If you have chlamydia or gonhorrea and it’s being treated or in remission, your baby (almost certainly) doesn’t need eye ointment.

If you have a c-section, your baby doesn’t need eye ointment.

If you are an STD-free mom delivering vaginally, your baby does not need eye ointment... and if you’re a healthy mom delivering by c-section your baby definitely 100% does not need eye ointmemt.

Bacteria are not our enemy to wipe out (we couldn’t anyway)... antibiotics have a very very narrow purpose, all other uses are abuses and are detrimental.

What is the evidence on erythromycin eye ointment in newborns? Is antibiotic eye ointment always necessary for babies? What are the risks and benefits?

01/01/2018

Hopefully none of my clients will need to be NICU-savvy-- but because I already have had clients needing to navigate it, I post this! There are very real risks to not breast-feeding at all ages, and unfortunately the vast majorities of NICU policies and practices make it that much more difficult for moms of babies who in some ways need it most. Dr Jack Newman has great insight & his regard for breast-feeding as the biological norm (worth fighting for!) is so refreshing!!

Many people think it is not possible for premature babies to be breastfed. The use of fortifiers is routine and for far too long periods and often unnecessary. Read about better ways to help mothers breastfeed their premature babies.