Peace of Mind Doula Services

01/04/2020

YES

11/18/2019

💕

"I’m four months postpartum.

Four months of breastfeeding one, sometimes two babies. Four months of feeling my core wobble and give way to backaches. Four months of watching this wrinkly pink baby fill out with rolls and soft, round cheeks. Four months of sheer exhaustion and middle of the night feedings. But I’m still so new, so raw.

My body is completely different than it was before babies, now twice over. I’m weaker in some places and stronger than I’ve ever been in others. I’ve pushed this body to the limit, to the place where it aches and screams for rest. I’ve nourished it some days and deprived it others. I’ve given it Lexapro to fight off the PPD that came for me again. I’ve heaved it heavily, sleepily out of bed for my crying babies. I’ve rocked it and bent it and contorted it to fit the shape of this new chapter of motherhood. But it’s still new. It’s postpartum. It’s healing. Slowly the pieces of me are coming back together in an entirely changed shape.

My belly button is caving in where I pierced it in youthful rebellion. The skin wrinkles like parchment paper where I try to button my mom jeans. My breasts inflate, engorge, deflate, sag, ache, spill, explode, leak, nourish, sustain life. My shoulders bend inward from the weight of love. My lips are often chapped from dehydration when I forget to pour myself water as I pour myself out to my babies. I’m not a martyr though, I’m a mother. I’m postpartum. I’m giving and giving and trying to find space for rest and self love and feeding myself and it’s impossibly hard and important and sacred work. I gave life from this scarred, ripped, creased, wrinkled, majestic and forever changed body and each day as my babies grow, so do I. Postpartum is hard and soft, painful and euphoric, lonely and full. Just like life, it’s dynamic. It’s okay to ache for your old life, former self, pre-baby body. It’s okay to feel a full spectrum of emotions about your new world. You can love your babies more than the stars in the sky and need a break.

Postpartum is such a tender time, be kind to yourself. It’s something I need to be reminded of, too."
📷: + Ariel Rose Photography

11/06/2019

The woman’s body is truly amazing!! I mean, look at this!!!

Mire que belleza 😍😍😍

10/28/2019

💕

10/14/2019

Excellent!

For mothers & those who love them, we introduce NewMomHealth.com, a new expert-written postpartum self-care information hub designed by moms, for moms.

Health information & support for the transition to motherhood brought to you by the team at UNC Center for Maternal and Infant Health and UNC School of Social Work.

10/07/2019

Ohhhhh this is so sweet!

It’s just been us since you made me a mama.
My other half, my sweetest little friend.
Come here my baby, and be my only, for just one moment more.
This expanding will build us. Make us fuller I know.
But when I see you again, you won’t feel as little.
So just lay with me, let me rock you slow.
Let me thank you my baby, for being the best teacher a mama could know.

Via the beautiful - https://www.instagram.com/snuggle_me_organic/
Words
Pic

09/14/2019

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

RESEARCH: RCT has found that 'delayed' cord clamping results in higher oxygen saturations and earlier establishment of breathing compared to premature clamping. Open access article: https://mhnpjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40748-019-0103-y

06/01/2019

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

If you ever doubt your body’s greatness remember the things it has done. I still don’t fully believe it every time I see it because it is so damn spectacular. We. Are. Phenomenal.

04/29/2019

Interesting way to see labor!

Did you know labor is less about your cervix opening and more about the thickness and contracting power of the uterus moving baby down and out? READ more about what empowering birth expert Carla Hartley has to say about this revelatory perspective in birth physiology!

"We think in pictures and we should be painting accurate pictures. The cervix nor the va**na bloom. The cervix is not a zip lock bag. The purpose of labor is NOT the creation of an opening or a hole... The purpose of labor contractions and retractions is to BUILD the fundus, which will, when it is ready, EJECT the baby, like a piston. Without a nice thick fundus there is no power to get baby out....the cervix does not dilate out....it dilates UP as a result of the effort to pull muscles up into the uterus to push muscles up to the fundus. The cervical dilation is secondary to that. The cervix is pulled up as a result of the building of the fundus. Assigning a number to cervical dilation is of little consequence and we make a huge mistake by interpreting progress or predicting time of birth to that number. Any experienced midwife or OB can tell you that the cervix can be manipulated and that a woman whose cervix is at 7 could have the baby in a few minutes or a few hours.

If more providers and educators knew the truth about birth physiology, we could make a huge difference for mothers. What is important is to keep her well supported for the purpose of the appropriate chemistry, to keep her well hydrated and nourished for muscle strength, and to believe in her. We should be supporting her so that her physiology and that of her baby are unhindered, so they can finish what they started.

We should not be measuring, poking, or interpreting her labor. THIS CHANGE in teaching about labor could make such a difference for women who are imagining what is happening in their bodies during labor. How much more strength might they have if they have an accurate picture?" -Carla Hartley

04/25/2019

We had a long night last night. Nightmares. Urgent calls for mama. Hall lights turned on, then off, then on again. Cup of water? Bit of milk? Hugs. Prayers. Still afraid? Ok into my bed you go. Better now? You’re going to sleep right in the middle aren’t you. Warm foot on my face. Little snores. Cute little pajamed body finally at rest. Eyelids calm and angelic.

Such is the stuff of tending baby hearts. And even when the middle of the night waltz seems to go on forever stretching moments into months, know you’re never dancing alone. There’s always someone keeping step, singing the harmony to your melody even if you can’t hear them.

We’re all in this together. You’re doing great.

Love, Bunmi ♥️🌙

04/23/2019

Who got those glorious 5 hours last night?

04/15/2019

Now THIS is the truth! haha

So true!

04/13/2019

Accurate 😆

It's all in the name of love, right?! 😴

04/13/2019

Grateful for people like Rebecca and her staff at Roots who are doing this very important work!

04/12/2019

PSA!

The Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a recall of all models of the Fisher-Price Rock N' Play sleepers after infants died.

04/11/2019

💜

This was one of my favorite poems to write for Dear Mother. Thank you, Shannon Logue, for sharing this. ❤️🌹

04/10/2019

Bend. The. Knee.

😆

04/10/2019

Yikes

The group wants the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to recall the sleeper after a report linked it to babies' deaths.