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Finding Pleasurable Birth in VBAC

"The moment her eyes find mine, she quiets, recognizing me though we have never seen each other. We are even more connected than when we were still one body." — “I cradle her to my left side, to my heart, to where the first sound she hears is the steady and familiar beat of home. She is slippery like a dolphin and oh so soft.The bright cord, still pulsing food and oxygen, entwines us.”

Roanna Rosewood’s Cut, Stapled, & Mended: When One Woman Reclaimed Her Body and Gave Birth on Her Own Terms After Cesarean is an incredibly honest, exquisitely written book for mothers, women recovering from traumatic birth, doctors, midwives, nurses, all birthworkers, expectant parents, pregnant women, and fathers.

Cut, Stapled, & Mended is like a beautifully detailed birth story arching over Roanna’s first two cesarean births and third birth- a healing, pleasurable, bubbly VBAC, complete with her insights to birth and a broken maternity system. The book is about childbirth and about “the exquisite and raw birth of a woman” and we get to witness this via delightful treks into her life of running a restaurant, traveling to Hawaii, and mothering her two boys and husband who have creative ideas of play: “When the dish soap goes missing, I find it and the three of them on the trampoline.They have added water from the garden hose and are jumping—Dad and Avram fully clothed, Jonah buck-naked—in mountains of suds.”

“No.”Again, she allows me to interrupt her.“I don’t need to sleep, I’ll take Pitocin. I’m fine. Really. Give me Pitocin, or Cytotec even. I can do this.” — Desperate to avoid cesarean, mom says: “I don’t need to sleep, I’ll take Pitocin. I’m fine. Really. Give me Pitocin, or Cytotec even. I can do this.”

Sadly the most challenging part of Roanna’s story is common to so many- as consumers we trust our doctors and facilities only to find this approach didn’t work. Roanna admits: “As an articulate person, I had assumed I would be able to rationalize through labor, to troubleshoot, to concentrate and verbalize and make decisions. I was wrong.” After we are taken thru the heartbreak of this very traumatic first birth, we head towards her second birth with more optimism and although, it too results in cesarean surgery, the experience is better and mom is able to employ different pleasurable birth techniques: “Our Hypnobirthing routine works well. I don’t experience “pain,” the surges continue to be manageable.” And after the surgery they receive MotherBaby Friendly care: “I am grateful for the gift of this profound time, to be the first person my baby sees, to allow the familiar beat of my heart to comfort him, and to have the dignity, privacy and warmth of my little cave…””

Roanna and her Merbaby — “The moment her eyes find mine, she quiets, recognizing me though we have never seen each other. We are even more connected than when we were still one body.”

For birth number three, mom goes into full training mode even having found acceptance: “If we have to go through a cesarean, it will be okay. Birth is not everything.We have an entire lifetime to share.” But instead she finds herself in a place where she can say: “Where before there was pain, now there is only exquisite pleasure.” And to her a “merbaby” is born!

This is such an important and beautifully written book for anyone preparing for pleasurable birth, recovering from traumatic birth, as well as all birthworkers- doctors, doulas, nurses, and midwives alike. Enjoy your read of Cut, Stapled, & Mended – you won’t want it to end!

Roanna with 2 of her 3 children and her wonderful midwife, Laura. — Roanna with 2 of her 3 children and her wonderful midwife, Laura, at book launch party.

Roanna is an the author of Cut Stapled and Mended: When One Woman Reclaimed Her Body and Gave Birth on Her Own Terms After Cesarean, an award-winning international speaker, co-founder and host of Birth Plan Radio, and the executive action chair of Human Rights in Childbirth and most importantly, a mother. In her not-so-humble opinion, the latter makes her a true birth expert.

Hear more from Roanna in the en*theos Orgasmic Birth Virtual Conference as she discusses Finding the Courage to Birth and how we cannot numb ourselves to fear, pain, and death, without also numbing ourselves to courage, pleasure, and life. Labor doesn’t come from nowhere, when contractions begin. It’s the physical manifestation of our experiences throughout life and pregnancy. Fear of labor isn’t bad thing. It illuminates the specific work you can do to prepare for labor.

Childbirth: A Memory of a Lifetime or Not?

(Including Penny Simkin’s new video)

Have you thought about what you want to take with you from your birth into the rest of your life? What birth story do you want to tell your children and grandchildren? Have you wondered how you can create Pleasurable Birth Memories? How to find and hold your power?

I was recently reflecting on my life and of course that includes my births- being born, giving birth and the many births I have been blessed and honored to attend. Having a birthday and celebrating another year provides a wonderful opportunity to be grateful for all of life’s experience, connections and lessons as well as time to ponder what elements create lasting positive, pleasurable memories, especially when it comes to childbirth – my life’s passion.

I first learned about the importance of a woman’s birth memory from a special mentor to me and co-founder of DONA International, Penny Simkin. I encourage all birth workers to reach Penny’s classic article, “Just another day in a woman’s life? Women’s long-term perceptions of their first birth experience” a study which analyzed the long-term impact of the birth experience on a group of 20 women. “Women reported that their memories were vivid and deeply felt. Those with highest long-term satisfaction ratings thought that they accomplished something important, that they were in control, and that the birth experience contributed to their self-confidence and self-esteem. They had positive memories of their caregivers words and actions. These positive associations were not reported among women with lower satisfaction ratings.”

“I think because of what I experienced in the delivery room I felt powerless. I felt what I said really didn’t make an impact and didn’t make a difference.” – Mother quoted in Penny Simkin report

My grand-elder may not remember what she had for breakfast the day before but she will likely remember the words that were spoken to her and how she felt about her birth experience. This is no wonder since birth is a time when we are open, raw, exposed and vulnerable – open to possibilities. We are open to ecstatic moments between surges and also vulnerable to an edgy presence in our birthspace or the ice-cold touch of a hand on our belly. It can work both ways!

For too long we have felt birth was a day to get thru, we didn’t care how the baby came out. It’s one day in a woman’s life but as Penny Simkin, and others have shown us, our birth memory is impacted by how we were treated- if we were respected, if we received love and support, and at what level, if we had continuous companionship, if we were honored and consulted with choices and decision-making (informed consent and informed refusal). Together these factors create either a positive memory that will empower a mother, give her strength and power in all her life, or sadly, and too often today, when many of these elements are missing our maternity care system, disempowers women, leaving new mothers with an emotional scar. The emotional scar will provide a map to the deepest parts of the mother who knows that something was not right, that a day that should have been joyful, blissful and, yes, orgasmic, has turned sad, stressful and, for a growing number of women, traumatic. This is unacceptable!

“The birth probably increased my self-confidence, although it’s not something I perceived at the time. It was definitely something major that I had done. In some ways it was probably a watershed, because it was one of the big things in life, and it happened to me in a very positive manner, in a manner that made me condiment that I could do it again, that I could do it- period.” – Mother quoted in Penny Simkin report

Birth is a day that can and should be transformative, powerful and blissful- creating an orgasmic feeling full of emotion and joy. Your birth memory will last a lifetime and plays a role in how you feel about being a mother, about your relationships and we now know can alter your self esteem to bring you more power and strength in all your life, or to take away and leave you feeling less than capable at mothering and future challenges.

So what creates a lasting positive powerful birth memory? Read my Key Essentials for Creating a Powerful Birth Memory for some ideas to get you started. You deserve to give birth with love, dignity and pleasure, creating a powerful memory that you will savor all your life!

Additional Sources: Mannava P1, Durrant K2, Fisher J3, Chersich M4,5, Luchters S, Global Health. 2015 Aug 15;11(1):36. doi: 10.1186/s2992-015-0117-9., Attitudes and behaviours of maternal health care providers in interactions with clients: a systematic review.

Srivastava et al. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth (2015) 15:97 DOI 10.1186/s12884- Determinants of women’s satisfaction with maternal health care: a review of literature from developing countries.

Why I am a Doula (or The Journey of One Superhero)

Submitted by Amy Neuhedel

Reflections on Eat Pray Doul Bali

My daughter is a superhero. She goes by the alias ”Super Ruby Princessa” which has a touch of her Swedish/American bilingualism in the name. I think often about my daughter’s curly blonde hair (maternal grandma’s), her blue eyes (paternal grandfather’s), her oh-so-tannable skin (maternal grandpa’s) and so on. But I’ve only recently discovered the lineage of her super-heroine powers. She got this from me! Her Mom! I’m a superhero.

Doulas are peacemakers, miracle workers, superheros. Just our very presence in the world, make the world a safer, more peaceful place. So we are a lot like Wonder Woman.

So, why I am I a doula? Well, for no less greater cause than saving the world.

You may need to be a little familiar with 70′s American Saturday morning TV (or Marvel comic books) to get this metaphor, but Eat, Pray, Doula in Bali, was a lot like a gathering of the Justice League in a tropical place with organic, locally produced food and homemade ice-cream. Debra Pascali-Bonero, Katherine Bramhall, and Ibu Robin Lim, the more seasoned Super-heros lending some expertise to us novice, very enthusiastic, but perhaps not-quite-in-total-control-of-our-powers yet newbies on the Superhero scene.

”Holy Bat Doula, Robin!”

Yes, to take the metaphor further, there is in fact a bat doula and Debra (or Bat Girl???) will tell you all about it at the Eat, Pray, Doula Workshop.

Actually, it’s Katherine who drives a moped…perhaps she is Bat Girl!?

And the fact is, Ibu Robin’s name is Robin…a coincidence? I think not!

On one of first adventures together, the newly initiated – myself and my three Wonder Twins (so we are Wonder Quadruplets in this case), Anita, Chrissy, and Alison find ourselves in the parallel universe of Bumi Sehat Birthing Clinic on Nyepi, the Balinese New Year – the Day of Silence. No one, not even a superhero, may be in the streets on Nyepi or else the evil spirits (think Legion of Doom) will make life on Bali really difficult the following year and none of us are willing to take that chance. Besides some super doulas must be at the clinic if any birthing moms show up (birthing moms on the back of mopeds are invisible to the evil spirits).

One such mom shows up:

Anita Wonder Twin and 1^st Doula-on-call: Form of loving, creative, continuous, non-tiring support for mama!

Chrissy Wonder Twin: Shape of water bucket!

Alison Wonder Twin: Form of hot water!

Amy Wonder Twin: Shape of water transport!

Success – in short, we harness our powers, dodge the Legion of Doom, and Anita doulas a gentle birth. One more step toward saving the world!

I thank my children and all my super doula sisters from Eat, Pray, Doula 2012 (especially Katherine, Debra and Robin) for inspiring and guiding me to focus my natural superhero qualities in such a meaningful way. And thanks to Anita for the super Bamboo clothing tip. Note to self: Synthetics+Tropics=Bad.

Love you all! And love to all future EPD attendees.

Eat, Pray, Doula –

Building peace, one Mother, one Baby at a time.

Amy is a doula and practices hypnobirthing in Sweden. Read her birth story of baby Henry on #obirth or visit her at www.amyneuhedel.com/thecord.

Love Redeems the Storm: Pregnancy After Loss

*Hope and Healing after Pregnancy and Childbirth Loss.* Here at Debra Pascali-Bonaro.com and on Pain to Power online childbirth education, we have shared our stories of loss with you before – loved ones lost, expectations lost, dreams lost… Today we share with one story of a mother and father’s loss as well as the empathetic voice of Angelique Chelton to guide us thru this tough subject. We hope to provide you some resources and hope for your own healing and/or for your helping those who have experienced loss. We want to honor the mothers, fathers, parents, grandparents, siblings who have suffered a loss, holding them and their baby in our heart and prayers. We send our nurturing love to you as we invite you to read and find insights and healing in this blog and story.

by Angelique Chelton

We liken normal pregnancy to a voyage by boat. We don’t know what the weather will be like when we embark on our journey, but the mother/captain’s body is a seaworthy vessel and she brings her midwife/navigator to sea. We expect an easy passage to a long-anticipated port.

But not all voyages are easy and not all ships reach their expected landing. Sometimes, a child is lost during the journey. When we first lose our precious baby, there is a rending of our bodies and our spirits. That which once was relished in lush, round fruitfulness ends in pain and longing and fear. The sweet visions of morning cuddles, bath times, story-reading, science projects, ice-cream cones, family vacations, holiday celebrations and eventually, graduations, weddings and grandchildren all come to a sudden end with a grunting push and a gush of blood.

Our baby is gone. The one we waited for and loved with our whole heart is no more. Our ship crashes upon an unseen reef, everyone aboard thrown into an angry sea of grief and pain and loss, no one more so than the mother whose very body was the voyaging vessel.

We stumble through the ensuing months, pain washing over us as we cling to our sanity as a shipwrecked sailor clings to driftwood. Always expecting to be pushed over the side, to lose our grip with the next wave, we instead find ourselves eventually in calmer waters. Somehow the storm of grief and longing begins to abate. We wash up on an island’s sandy beach, emotionally spent, the raging sea of sorrow and fear of drowning in the past.

There is no going back to what once was; we slowly begin to rebuild. We renew old connections and make new ones. We realize that our grief won’t bring our baby back to us, so we give ourselves permission to feel ok today. Sometimes we find that the tide has come in unexpectedly and our grief washes over us once more.

Eventually, we get good at predicting when the tide will come. We expect it around anniversaries like the day our babies died or the unrealized ‘due date’ or when we visit a place that was important during our pregnancy. Sometimes the tied washes in and overwhelms us, but not as often as when we first came to this island.

Screen Shot 2015-06-11 at 10.54.41 AM One day, we are sitting on the beach, a warm morning sun falling on us, and we remember our pregnancy and our baby and the flood doesn’t come. For the first time, maybe, we are remembering without being overwhelmed. We smile when we think of the precious moments we shared with our baby- making the pregnancy announcement, hearing our baby’s heartbeat, feeling fluttering movements. We love still, the love stronger than the pain for the first time since the storm.

One day, we realize that we have reached a place of balance. The shipwreck will never be undone- it can never be taken back and it will forever have an impact on our lives. The shipwreck changed us, became an important delineation point in our histories. It was powerful enough that the flow of our life is marked as before and after the shipwreck.

Now, in this time, we see the tide that flows in as an old friend; a life’s companion that returns to remind us of the weight of love for our baby. We make peace with this tide and see our future as one that will be lived in its presence.

Today, we are strong. We have integrated the loss- our shipwreck- into our lives. We recognize that the people we are today have been shaped by the experiences related to the loss of our precious child and the loss of a future with them. We can even celebrate the new person who came up out of that shipwreck, who found ways to bring healing and life and goodness to the world after such a catastrophic rending. The work we do is good. The life we are living is good. And without our baby and our shipwreck, this beautiful life never would have been.

There is peace and even joy in realizing the storm doesn’t end the journey, that love for our baby redeems the shipwreck in the end.

Screen Shot 2015-06-11 at 11.14.03 AM

Angelique Chelton of Hearthside Perinatal Bereavement Care is a birth doula (certified via Madriella and Hypnobabies certified) and postpartum doula, CLC, BEBE CBE. She has started her journey towards midwifery via Mamatoto Village Midwifery Assistant training and is an active midwifery apprentice in Lancaster County, PA. Angelique is also a perinatal bereavement specialist and has trained hundreds of birth workers via her ICEA accredited perinatal bereavement online training program and in-person workshops. She will be launching The Hearthside Perinatal Bereavement Specialist Certification Program this August in honor of her son Anduril’s tenth birthday. Learn more a Hearthside Maternity Services (families) or Hearthside Care (birthworkers).

Read Baby River: This is Your Story

Healthy Women, Healthy Futures: Harlem Community Doula Program

Healthy Women Healthy Futures: Postpartum Doula Workshop at the Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership in Harlem, NYC April 21 – 24, 2015.

Creating a village of support for MotherBaby and families in New York City.

Last month was an especially special month for me. I have had a dream, that began almost 30 years ago when I first became a doula, that every MotherBaby, father, partner and family would be able to have a nurturing, unconditionally supportive doula with them during childbirth and postpartum. A doula provides access to information and comfort, and helps parents navigate the many choices and options they have in pregnancy, labor, birth, breastfeeding and the postpartum period with love and respect so they can make informed collaborative decisions and create lasting positive birth memories.

This seemed like a big dream given that in the U.S few women truly know all their options in childbirth. In the U.S., medicalized birth is like an industrialized conveyor belt to the point that women often do not receive personalized, continuous, compassionate care. The overuse of technology has left many women feeling more like an object than a sacred being at the time they are bringing new life into the world. Combine our birth practices with the fact that the U.S has the shortest maternity stays of the Western world, no postpartum home care or follow-up, and provides new mothers with less information and support than if you began a job at a fast food chain. I have never understood why a country that prides ourselves on motherhood and families, offers the least options of all other western countries and lacks services that care for and prepare our Mothers and families for healthy beginnings.

I have worked for 30 years to support the growth of doulas and community doula programs; community women who are trained to support women and their partners and families through the childbearing continuum. Doulas nurture, educate, enhance communication, provide comfort, refer and offer their one-to-one support and care that we know is essential for mothers to have gentler, easier birth with lower rates of interventions including reduced risk of cesarean birth, increased success and duration of breastfeeding, lower rates of depression, less isolation so that both MotherBaby survive and thrive!

As the years have gone on and doulas have grown informally and formally all around the world, I have been blessed to share doula workshops in 28 countries, in each region of the world. I have held strong to my vision of doulas becoming integrated into our health care system and recognized by government and policy makers. Yet, I wondered why — with all the compelling research and NO side effects — our system was resistant to the role that human companionship could play in improving medical outcomes. As the late Dr. Kennell who researched the many benefits of doula care said: “if a doula were are drug it would be unethical to withhold her!” Why Why are there still so many barriers to implementing doula care [or programs], despite evidence demonstrating so many benefits?

Can you hear me yelling out the widows of NYC? Yes, the NY City Council has seen the value of doulas and funded a pilot project Healthy Women Healthy Futures showing NY’s commitment to our mothers in the sensitive, vulnerable time of pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding. The program was developed by small group of caring individuals once again showing the power of a small group to create awareness and change- Ekua Ansah-Samuels, Fajah Ferrer, Elan McCallister, Nan Strauss, Arielle Cheifetz, Mary Powell and other amazing women who all came together as one dynamo force. A diverse coalition of birth workers and dedicated supporters have joined together to make this vision into a reality. They include – Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership, the Department of Health, Choices in Childbirth.

“Our hope is that Healthy Women, Healthy Futures will serve as a model for community-based doula programs throughout the country. Community-based organizations, doulas, educators, and health care policy-makers and advocates have joined together in this effort to put women’s needs front and center.” Read more

Healthy Women Healthy Futures is an investment in our families, our communities, society and our next generation. Thank you NY City Council for your dedication and vision for MotherBabies of NY.

Last month, I had the honor of facilitating a DONA International Postpartum Doula workshop for this collaborative program. Pinch Me! Yes, My dream is coming true. My heart is overflowing as I welcomed 21 doulas who will go back to provide support through the following collaborative agencies:

Brooklyn: Ancient Song Doula Services, Brooklyn Perinatal Network, Inc.

Bronx: The Bronx Health Link

Manhattan: Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership

Queens: Queens Comprehensive Perinatal Council. Inc.

Staten Island: Caribbean Women’s Health Association, Inc.

Community Health Center of Richmond

Our workshop of 21 new doulas brought together and honored our diversity in every way, speaking many languages including Polish, Chinese, Spanish, and English, and hailing from many different cultural, religious, community and traditional and non-traditional backgrounds. We wove together a rich tapestry of wisdom that they are ready to birth forward to women in their communities.

Doula workshops are filled with emotions, as we create a sisterhood, filled with special moments of sharing our stories, experience, challenges and joys. One moment that was extra special to me was a morning circle where we shared our nurturing touch with each other, gentle strokes on our shoulders, necks, and head ending as we told each other an empowering statement. A beautiful deep connection was felt by all and the lack of this type of nurturing between women in our own communities was sadly discussed. Doulas are truly reconnecting an essential circle of women to support and care for each other. It does take a village! Healthy Women Healthy Futures is creating a village of support for women, for doulas, for every pregnant women to have access to information, respect, nurturing, care, comfort and the guidance she needs and deserves so she can care for and nurture her baby in the ways she dreams of. Doulas mother the mother so that she gains confidence and will then mother her baby.

Join my dream.

This Mother’s Day add your support by contributing to improve care for all MotherBabies around the world starting with Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership. The Community doulas of NYC are in need of books, and doula supplies. If you have any doula tips, tricks, books or supplies, please send them to The Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership C/O Fajah Ferrer, 127 West 127th Street, Third Floor New York, New York 10027. Thank you!

B-School: Make Money. Change the World.

Do you have a dream or vision you want to bring out into the world?

A new product, program or class?

If you are like me I knew I could be doing more and better, yet I didn’t have the time or money to do anything different. I was working as hard and fast as I could with no time for anything more and lacking funds to do more too. Until one of my friends told me to check out Marie Forleo’s B-School. I took a quick peak and thought it was interesting but I had too many projects to finish to look more. A few weeks later another friend said to me, you have a great message, but you are not reaching all who need to hear it. Check out Marie Forleo’s B-School. I love the universe, helping me to see that as I loved being part of a community of support and learning around childbirth, I needed this for my business too. To have creative, innovative and life affirming techniques and guidance to create a model of marketing and learning that would not only transform me, but my website and business model and spread a message of power, pleasure and possibilities to women and men around the world, my passion to transform childbirth.

I began to watch past episodes of Marie TV, to listen to comments by her past students and yes you guessed it, another person contacted me to say how much they though I could benefit from Marie’s B-School. Well, I realized I could not afford not to join B-School, so I took the leap and signed up and so much has changed. I have a new look, a weekly pleasurable e-news, our business has grown, I’ve launched Orgasmic Birth Pleasurable Birth Essentials, written, The Ultimate Guide to Sex After Baby, and I am now piloting our new Orgasmic Birth Practitioner Program.

So many people have commented on all the changes they have seen in my message and me. Our team is growing, and I am so grateful for their help to implement our vision. Together we have the confidence and skills to make it happen with the knowledge and tools that B-School provided. I go through B-School every year since B-School is a lifetime membership, and I learn something new every time.

I invite you to join me in B-School. Please use my affiliate link. By joining thru me, you take your first step in a new model of supporting each other and no matter what business you are in, we can find ways to support each other and be paid to do it! I look forward to seeing you in B-School and watching as you reach your dreams and spread your vision. We are changing the world and changing the way we do business. Instead of competition we are collaborating, helping each other to fly and in doing so, bringing a healthy model, a fun model of living our passion and earning the income we deserve while doing our part to create a healthy, peaceful world.

I never thought a year later I would be writing this blog to share how much B-School has benefited me and be inviting you to join B-School too.

Ask yourself if you are ready to take your dream and vision to the next level? Do you want to have a business that thrives?

Give yourself the gift that will keep on giving B-School.

We all know there’s a lot of confusing information out there, but this video breaks it down into simple, do-able steps that you can use right now to get out of overwhelm and get on the right track. Here’s what you’ll learn:

The Six Step Roadmap build your online business

The major changes coming in the next 5 -10 years that are really important to understand and why it’s really important that you up your online game now, before these changes happen.

- What you must know, what you must understand, and the sequence you have to follow if you want to use this incredible gift we have — the internet — to do what you love and get paid for it.

You don’t want to miss her Six Pillar roadmap — the first part of this amazing free video training series.

I hope to see you in our private B-School Whatsapp group soon and hear how B-School changes your business model and your life.

About Birth Your Dreams

Our Birth Your Dreams Community is a special group of birthworkers who have signed up to join B-School via my affiliate link. Together we work through the B-School Marketing Course learning tips for expanding our message and businesses. As Birthworkers, we have our own unique set of goals and ideas, and together we lift each other higher and support one another on our journeys.

B-School helps each of us to continue sharing our message while creating sustainable, healthy businesses.

Interested in learning more? Join my Birth Your Dreams Mailing List for updates on B-School and more blogs from our group.

Let the Revolution Begin!

Dr. Buckley’s Hormonal Physiology of Childbearing: Evidence and Implications for Women, Babies, and Maternity Care is a long awaited and important look at every MotherBaby’s hormonal right to joy, ecstasy, and bliss as well as, sadly, the numerous ways our medical model disturbs the pleasure. I believe Dr. Buckley’s report is the tipping point to expose our maternity care system flaws and bring us all together to rebuild a model that honors the sacred, amazing transformational process labor and birth is and should be when we trust Mother Nature and support our hormones to flow. The path to creating safe satisfying & powerful births & Mother’s. Let the revolution begin! Read the report now.

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To learn more about how to trust Mother Nature and support your hormones to flow, sign up to learn about our new Online Pain to Power Childbirth Experience and receive Debra’s three free video’s including sexuality and tips and tricks for an easier childbirth.

Awakening the Doula Spirit

It’s hard to believe I have been a doula for 30 years. When I reflect back to how I began, there is not just one particular moment of beginning for me. Being with women in childbirth is in my heart, some would say a calling. I was fascinated with childbirth from an early age, my great grandmother, grandmother and mother’s story of power and joy prepared me to trust birth and to know I deserved more from our maternity care system. Although I had powerful, pleasurable, natural childbirths, with all I know now – I wish I’d had a doula.

It was after my own birth that I became inspired to be a childbirth educator, to help women and their partners understand the many choices they had or sadly were not being given. Before long people were inviting me to come to their birth to take pictures, and to offer encouragement. I was honored to attend a birth and would do anything to be present at such a sacred time. It was one day I’ll never forget in 1987 when my issue of Mothering magazine arrived in my mailbox. I prepared a cup of tea and sat down to enjoy the articles. One of the first articles that jumped out at me was about a Doula. I began to read and had to yell – I am a doula! I had discovered a name for what I was doing and soon a connection to the many other women that were having that same moment of realization. Before email we wrote letters, and before cell phones we called and left messages, and the very first doula meeting in the world was organized – to take place in my home state, New Jersey in 1987. In 1992, I was present at the very first meeting of DONA International in Boston, and became part of their very first Board of Directors for the first six years. Working with Penny Simkin, Marshall and Phyllis Klaus, John Kennell, Annie Kennedy and other amazing birth advocates and doulas on the DONA board was an experience that has shaped many aspects of my work today. The long hours of debates knowing that the models and processes that were developed were setting the foundation for the growth of doulas globally was both challenging and exhilarating!

As a doula trainer I have facilitated doula workshops in 30 countries and I have watched doulas grow in every region of the world. Each workshop opens my heart more to the power, passion and magic that happens when women connect with their deep intuitive wisdom and pass it on believing in, supporting, caring and nurturing women, men and families as they cross through the sacred gateway to parenthood and in the process nurturing each other.

For many years every time I told someone that I was a doula, they asked me “What is a doula?” I was determined to keep educating them, but I never thought in my lifetime I would see doulas spread around the world as they are, being supported by research as one of the only “interventions” in childbirth with only benefits and no harms.

What is a doula?

In the US two states, MN and OR have passed legislation to cover doulas under Medicaid. The recently NY Doula Report from Choices in Childbirth provides an overview of the medical evidence supporting the benefits of doula care, and goes on to say: ‘With the implementation of the Affordable Care Act comes an unprecedented opportunity to ensure that women receive quality, respectful maternity care throughout their pregnancy and childbirth experience. Doula Care in New York City: Advancing the Goals of the Affordable Care Act examines doula care within the “triple aim” framework to demonstrate how doula care can help to improve outcomes, reduce spending and improve the patient experience of care. The report also considers the powerful role that doulas can play in fostering greater patient engagement in health care decision-making and reducing disparities in health outcomes, additional goals outlined in the ACA.”

This fall I had the pleasure of visiting Marshall and Phyllis Klaus, two of the founders of DONA International, world renowned for their work in parent infant attachment as well as helping to re-discover the importance of female companionship during childbirth. Their work literally changed my life! Becoming part of DONA International and actively spreading the doula spirit and research wherever opportunity presents itself is only possible because of the Klaus’, Penny Simkin, Annie Kennedy and John Kennell. It was so special to me to have the opportunity to tell Phyllis and Marshall how much they mean to me and to thank them once again for dedicating their lives to improving the care that every MotherBaby receives and for teaching, encouraging and supporting me on my path. They have a place in the history of childbirth, neonatology, doulas, breastfeeding and more.

How will you pass along or re-discover the doula spirit within you?

If you would like to become a doula, join me at a workshop or a doula retreat.

If you’d love to know more about working as a doula, enjoy reading Naomi’s birth story where you will see me as a doula. Every birth is a blessing! Being with Naomi was so special and sacred and yet we only met via email the day before! When I entered her home during labor I could feel immediately how to join the circle of support and nurture her. When we open ourselves fully, allow our intuition to guide us and love from the deepest part of our heart it is easy to develop a deep connection. Women in labor are open to the core and doulas who can meet them their enjoy this divine connection that life rarely provides us in todays busy world. Giving is receiving! I have had opportunities to see 100’s of babies enter the world, women become mothers, men become fathers, parents become grandparents, children become siblings, we are all transformed by each new life and I feel so honored, and blessed beyond words to be a part of the circle of support, and the circle of life.

I believe Doulas are on their way to becoming a covered benefit for all who want a doula in the U.S and that other countries will follow. It’s no longer a question that doulas do make a difference! As the late Dr. Kennell said, “If a doula were a drug, it would be unethical not to use it.” There are many ways we are beginning to understand that women affect each other’s physiology as you may know, when women live together, their menstrual cycles sync. Women help other women lower stress levels, creating tend and befriend instead of the flight or fight response and I believe we will continue to learn how a woman’s continuous presence and support in childbirth creates so many short and long term benefits for MotherBaby, Father, Partner and family.

May you pass along the doula spirit in all you do, nurture yourself and each other, bring more love, peace and acceptance to birth and our lives. Look for my two additional doula videos in the coming weeks!

~Debra Pascali-Bonaro

Finding Pleasurable Birth in VBAC

Childbirth: A Memory of a Lifetime or Not?

Why I am a Doula (or The Journey of One Superhero)

Love Redeems the Storm: Pregnancy After Loss

Read Baby River: This is Your Story

Healthy Women, Healthy Futures: Harlem Community Doula Program

B-School: Make Money. Change the World.

Give yourself the gift that will keep on giving B-School.

You don’t want to miss her Six Pillar roadmap — the first part of this amazing free video training series.

About Birth Your Dreams

Let the Revolution Begin!

Awakening the Doula Spirit

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Read Baby River: This is Your Story

Give yourself the gift that will keep on giving B-School.

You don’t want to miss her Six Pillar roadmap — the first part of this amazing free video training series.

About Birth Your Dreams

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