Acosta Transformative Birth Services

07/10/2022

This is something I get asked a lot! Here are some ways you know baby is getting enough 💕 And as always you can contact our Lactation team for any of you concerns, even if you didn’t birth at the center! We are here to serve all moms of our community!! 🤰🧑🏽‍🍼👶🏻

07/10/2022

Hey! So I'm brainstorming ideas for a Mommy support group! What kind of things would you like a group like this to offer besides fellowship and advice from experienced moms, monthly outings, and walking days? Feel free to share what time of day you'd be able to attend a group like this also!

05/01/2022

Sending hugs and prayers to everyone who's a member of this "club" none of us ever wanted to be a member of ❤️

10/11/2021

06/03/2021

Free local breastfeeding support group!

New local breastfeeding support groups are starting June 2021 in Rocky Mount and Martinsville. Free and open to all expecting and nursing mothers, these once-a-month groups will focus on education and peer support, led by certified lactation counselor Laura Kefauver, mother of seven and experienced....

05/13/2021

Have you ever pumped and dumped? This article shares some facts about how alcohol is passed through to breast milk. You can always use milk you choose to pump but prefer not to feed to your baby in other ways! Milk baths, milk soap, the list goes on!

https://www.nm.org/healthbeat/healthy-tips/pumping-and-dumping-myths

Breastfeeding, alcohol and medications: What you need to know.

05/12/2021

Just amazing ❤

A M N I O T I C M E M B R A N E S . .

‘The amniotic membrane is adhered to the chorion - the other membrane attached to the placenta that sits between the amniotic membrane and the uterus.’ These membranes look like one, but are in fact two.

‘Around 80-90% of women will start labour with their membranes intact. During a contraction, the pressure is equalised throughout the fluid rather than directly squeezing the baby, placenta and umbilical cord. This protects the baby and his/her oxygen supply from the effects of the powerful uterine contractions.’ Caul births seem more common during water births and are possibly one of the most amazing sights in the world’ - Dr Rachel Reed MidwifeThinking

Incredible. I have no words. How lucky are we to have birth photographers to capture such incredible moments of our life.

Birth changes us.

How precious to visually go back to this moment.

📸

05/09/2021

Happy Mother's Day! Whether you've been a mother for many moons 👩🏾‍🦳, your baby is still in your womb 🤰🏽, or your baby is watching over you 👼🏾, today is a day to celebrate what motherhood means to you! What's your favorite way to enjoy Mother's Day? My kids ask me what I want and by now they know every year it's the same thing...peace & quiet 😂🤣

05/04/2021

Only in more recent years have we even begun to realize and acknowledge that dads can have mental health issues related to pregnancy and the postpartum experience. Babies change everything! For everybody!

*Obligatory doula self-promo* 😉

Doulas can help moms and dads prepare for childbirth and the postpartum experience! Planning ahead is especially important if you plan to deliver in a hospital with limitations on support people! If your partner is the only person allowed in the room with you, you want him to be prepared to advocate for you!

It effects moms and dads!

04/23/2021

I was today years old when I learned this!

Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex (D-MER)

Things you should know:

💧D-MER's dysphoria is often described as an unpleasant or uncomfortable mood, such as sadness, anxiety, irritability, or restlessness.
💧D-MER is similar to a reflex. This sensation is dictated by hormones and can NOT be controlled by the mother.
💧The dysphoria a mother feels from D-MER comes on suddenly before letdown and often leaves within 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
💧D-MER is NOT a psychological response to breastfeeding; it is a physiological response to milk release.
💧D-MER is not postpartum depression, nor is it classified as a postpartum mood disorder.
💧D-MER doesn't have to negate a successful breastfeeding journey. Many women who experience D-MER still continue to breastfeed.
💧D-MER doesn't mean you're a bad mom! Rember: this is your body's physiological response and a sensation that is completely out of your control. You're doing great!

03/27/2021

❤

Dear bedsharing mama,

I know your muscles ache. And your hips feel tight. It’s hard to share your body day & night.

You long to just uncurl, to stretch your limbs out wide... yet there’s this little person always clinging to your side.

You know that there will come a time you’ll have the bed back to yourself, and those little tiny hands will no longer search for help.

And when all of this is over, you’ll forget the nights that dragged. The moments of frustration, the sleep you wish you’d had.

Instead, you will recall the beauty of what was, this small portion of their lifetime spent together, all because...

You knew that’s what they needed, and what you needed, too... to rest so close and so connected, to the heart that lived in you.

-

03/26/2021

Join us on April 2 for Amamantando en Español right here on Facebook.

03/08/2021

Our bodies never cease to amaze me ❤

Microchimerism, discovered in 1893 by German pathologist Georg Schmorl, means specifically to us bereaved mothers, that our very cells hold DNA from our beloved babies.

So in perhaps psychological and spiritual terms, many of us believe our babies will always be part of us, but, it is true in physical terms, as well.

Our babies matter. They are a part of us. And, they change us.

02/28/2021

This should be good 😉 I might be a little biased 😂

Our series "A Call to Make a Difference for Black Mothers" will continue next week, but we would like to close out 2021's Black History Month with a very special interview with NLBC's very own, lovely Kayla Acosta!

Kayla is a mother of six, a wonderful part of our New Life Birth Center family, and a midwife's assistant with the experience of supporting moms at 42 births and counting!

Be sure to check out Kayla's insightful and encouraging interview "Half Dozen at the Birth Center" on the NLBC Blog! https://www.newlifebirthcenter.org/half-dozen-birth-center/

02/03/2021

"In many parts of the world, infant sleep is not such an obsession. Life goes on around it and the mother isn't basing her worth on such a small fragment of what it means to love and care for a baby...You're not failing. And neither is your baby."

The 'sleep industry' in the West is huge. The obsession with getting babies to sleep longer and more deeply than is appropriate for their developmental age is a burden many parents experience.

HOW DO I GET THEM TO SLEEP! HOW DO I GET THEM TO SLEEP THROUGH? HOW DO I GET THEM TO NAP LONGER? HOW DO I GET THEM TO NAP NOT ON ME?

Parents feel they are somehow failing if their baby doesn't nap for X minutes, or sleep a total of X hours a day, or if baby needs their help getting to sleep. Parents can feel ashamed, like they are lacking skill, like they're not cut out for parenthood, like they don't know what they're doing, and are often sold the unhelpful lie that baby sleep is the most important thing to 'nail' in the first year. Again, otherwise you're failing.

This is a Friday reminder from us - that you are not failing.

In many parts of the world, infant sleep is not such an obsession. Life goes on around it and the mother isn't basing her worth on such a small fragment of what it means to love and care for a baby.

Your baby is so much more than their ability to sleep deeply and for a long time. This isn't the sole reason they came into the world. They came into the world to be a person for you to love, for you to hold, for you to enjoy, for you to get to know.

There are good nights, less good nights, ok nights and awful ones. Better nap days, train wreck nap days, no nap days and great nap days. Every single parent has to learn to ride the highs and surf the lows. There is no escaping them. You get the picture....

Imagine how much less stressed those at home looking after babies and toddlers would be if they really knew this in their hearts. It doesn't mean sleep isn't important, and that Mums/Dads don't need a break in the relentlessness of it all. Of course they do. But if society stopped focusing in on sleep as a measure of the worth of the parent, or the success of a parent & instead understood normal infant sleep and supported parents while they were in the trenches of it in those early years, imagine how different it could be. I'm sure we're not the only ones who think that would be a great shift in thinking and therefore parental experience.

You're not failing. And neither is your baby.

Have a great weekend.

01/29/2021

I'm so proud to be an alumna of Stillbirthday University ❤

01/22/2021

No está relacionado con el embarazo ni el parto pero se trata de la educación de nuestros hijos así que vale la pena compartirlo aquí 🙂

¡Esta noche!
¿Tienes preguntas sobre la escuela/educación en el hogar? Acompáñenos esta noche (jueves) a las 8 p.m. para una sesión de preguntas y respuestas en vivo con la consultora bilingue de HSLDA Karim Morato y Sheri Payne de HEAV. Hablemos de la educación en el hogar bilingue, la educación en el hogar hispano, y mucho más! Descubra cómo obtener respuestas a SUS preguntas ahora mismo.

Tonight!
Do you have homeschool questions? Join us TONIGHT (Thursday) at 8 p.m. for a live Q&A with HSLDA bilingual consultant Karim Morato and HEAV's Sheri Payne. Let’s talk about bilingual homeschooling, Hispanic homeschooling, and more! Find out how to get answers to YOUR questions now.