My Birth My Doula

28/05/2025

So needed, care as it should be after the birth of your baby 💖

We are introducing a new branch to our Community Clinic! Post-Natal care for moms and babies 🤍

11/03/2025

Definitely worth doing ladies! 🤗

Alaysia Alesandra Di Mauro

Cheryl's Gentle Births

26/05/2024

We are so influenced by the disapproval of others, normalisation of breastfeeding full stop is so needed!

Moms are amazing! B***s are magic 💖

I remember the first time I saw a toddler breastfeeding.

I found it weird. Really weird.

It seemed unnatural to me that a child who could walk and talk should STILL need to nurse.

The second time I saw it, it seemed less weird.
And the third, fourth and fifth time I was fine with it.

“Each to their own, but it’s not for me”, I would say.

I swore that I would breastfeed my own child till six months. Maximum.

Anything after that and they should be using bottles. Of expressed milk or formula. Particularly out in public. After all, they get all they need from solid food from six months anyway.

Six months came. And went.

He refused bottles.
I could barely pump a drop.
Breastfeeding in public was not the discreet affair that I had envisaged.....
And he refused milk in any other form other than straight from the tap...
I was stressed and confused and I inadvertently found myself breastfeeding into toddlerhood.

Every assumption that I had ever made;
About him not needing it past six months, and about how he should be taking bottles...
he dispelled my ignorance at every corner.

And he showed me that he DID need it.
I just had to find that out for myself.

And breastfeeding a toddler suddenly didn’t feel weird. It made so much sense.
For us.

When he was unwell he would rely on it.
When he was upset he would rely on it.
And when he was hurting, happy, tired, angry, hungry, thirsty, sad; he would rely on it.

Until one day he was able to check in with his own emotions, and he no longer relied on it.
He developed his own coping mechanisms.

So why is it important to normalise natural term breastfeeding?
Because if this is the first time someone sees it, then the second or third time it will be slightly less weird. And by the fifth time, it would hardly be noticed or commented upon at all.

Because the only thing that is unnatural about natural term breastfeeding, is society’s ASSUMPTION that it is unnatural or weird.
It was my unrealistic expectations that made it unnatural. And it was my lack of understanding that made it weird.

It is one of motherhoods greatest contradictions;
to push the importance of breastfeeding without adequate support, and then push for her and her child to stop before either of them are ready.

And that needs to end.

14/04/2024

We need Midwives!!

We are facing difficult times, Midwives understand normal physiological birth, part of that is the passing on of the "friendly" bacteria at birth. Seeding our children with the tools they need to be healthy in mind body and soul.

If this resonates with you, you should be seeking out a Midwife led birth.

Unless you, the birthing mothers, demand the care you want, midwifery will be a dying skill.

14/04/2024

Induction is very commonly offered in South Africa, for many reasons from valid to less so!

As we see here, and there are many links to the original studies referred to, so if you need correct up to date information, you must do some reading.

The ARRIVE study relied upon to make the decision to induce at 39 weeks is flawed.

Real-world research shows that induction increases caesarean, no matter what certain obstetric trials might have found...