Debra Pascali-Bonaro

Awaken Your Inner Wisdom

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Quality Care for Moms & Babies Act

It is an exciting time as last week The Quality Care for Moms and Babies Act was introduced. Childbirth Connection and other organizations have worked on this bill for the last two years. It is exciting to see that the bill has bipartisan support on the Senate side from Democratic Senators Stabenow and Menendez, and Republican support from Senator Grassley. Representative Eliot Engel (D-NY), introduced the House version. Here’s the joint press release issued today by Childbirth Connection and the NPWF: http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=38371&security=2141&news_iv_ctrl=2181

National Partnership for Women & Families writes: “We strongly support the bill because it can improve maternal and child health in this country. It fosters safe, effective, evidence-based maternity care for all women and babies by supporting performance measurement, quality collaboratives, and patient experience surveys targeting this care.”

Please write your senators and legislators and ask them to support this essential bill to transform maternity care in our nation and support midwives and doulas in quality, cost-effective care.

Aboriginal Birthing Mothers in Australia

Full Title: “The inequality for Aboriginal Birthing Mothers, living in remote communities in Australia”

Submitted by Kate Gorman, Co-Director/Producer The Face of Birth: Are you looking to do a fundraiser for your group or to gather all your friends and colleagues together around a new birth film? Starting March 8th you can host a screening in your living room, community theater, or wherever you choose of the much anticipated Documentary, The Face of Birth Documentary (87 minutes 2012, Australia).

Baby Matthew- tired after the baby smoking ceremony. Yirrkala NT
Baby Matthew- tired after the baby smoking ceremony. Yirrkala NT

It was a life changing experience while filming The Face of Birth to spend time ‘on community’ in the remote areas of the Northern Territory in Australia.

We visited Darwin, the Northern Territory’s capital city, the small community of Yirrkala in remote East Arnhem Land and several of the communities of Utopia in the Red Centre, the desert in the very middle of Australia.

Visiting these communities it is easy to forget that you are in fact, in a first world country. Every Aboriginal community is of course different and facing slightly different issues; though I believe they all suffer from racism and lack of understanding of the peoples’ needs and wishes.

Many of the women I spoke with expressed their desire to be able to birth ‘on country’, essentially home birth. The policy for pregnant Aboriginal women living in remote communities is this: at 36-week gestation they are flown (or driven if distances aren’t to great i.e. less than 300 kilometres) to the nearest hospital. Here they will be accommodated in a hostel until they go into labour. Health professionals call this “confinement”. If they are over 18 they have to go alone – without husband, partner, mother or friend also having leaving behind any other children for up to 4 weeks! The women often don’t speak English and no one at the hostel or hospital speaks their language.

I interviewed a midwife who works in a remote community at the very top of Australia that is inaccessible by car for 8 months of the year. Many women in this community, desperately unhappy with the ‘confinement’ maternity policy, are absconding from antenatal care completely in order to be outside of the system and not removed from their families. As a result they have a very high home birth rate. However many times women wanting support will come into the medical clinic during labour. The on call Midwife may never have met these women before. The midwife’s official procedure is to contact the main city hospital. If the woman is 7 centimetres, or less, dilated, she is to administer medication to halt her labour and put her on an aeroplane. The midwife I interviewed (who did not wish to be named), says she would much rather deliver the baby herself there in the clinic. And some time does just that, if she believe it is better for the mother. An act, for which she could get into serious trouble.

Many people are trying to get midwives and General Practitioners in clinics in these communities to give the option to low risk women to birth on country. However despite more than a decade of trying, they have not so far been successful in getting even a trial in any community.

Rosie and Lena pula- Traditional Midwives. Utopia NT.
Rosie and Lena pula- Traditional Midwives. Utopia NT.

When I asked the women from Utopia and Yirrkala why birthing ‘on country’ was important, the reasons they gave were: they wanted to be surrounded by their families, they wanted to have a midwife (traditional aboriginal as well as western trained) that they knew and trusted to deliver their baby. And they wanted to be on their country, connected to their land, to have their children be born part of the land as is the strong part of their culture and beliefs.

It struck me that these were the same reasons that I a middle class white woman from the big city chose to have a home birth. I wanted to have my family with me. I wanted continuity of care with my known midwife, and although I don’t have the same spiritual connection to my home, I wanted to be in my home environment.  Maybe it would be truer to say I absolutely didn’t want to be in the clinical environment of a hospital.

20 mins of The Face Of Birth is presenting the fascinating women of Darwin, Yirrkala and Utopia – sharing the stories from both mothers and traditional midwives. It is a section of the film that always evokes great emotion at screenings. I feel that everything that is wrong with Australian maternity policies is compounded and clearly drawn out in these remote communities.

Another Birth film called Birth Rights made 10 years earlier drew a comparison between Australian remote communities and Inuit communities in remote Canada, although the terrain could not be more different – the snow in Canada and the red hot dust in Australia – the issue is the same. However in Canada due to great training and change in policy they were able to get birth back into their community with fantastic results. I sincerely hope one day soon Australia can do the same.

To find out more about the film visit: The Face of Birth or see Debra’s tips on how you can get involved.

The Face of Birth Documentary Premieres March 8th

FoB DVD coverAre you looking to do a fundraiser for your group or to gather all your friends and colleagues together around a new birth film?

Starting March 8th you can host a screening in your living room, community theater, or wherever you choose of the much anticipated Documentary, The Face of Birth Documentary (87 minutes 2012, Australia), a film about pregnancy, childbirth, and the power of choice, making its International Premier on International Women’s Day! Host a screening anytime starting March 8th onward!

Through the diverse and moving stories of five women who choose to have homebirths The Face of Birth gives us the big-picture on the importance of how, where and with whom we give birth to our children.

Featuring interviews with some of the world’s top childbirth experts The Face of Birth explores the links between choice and safety. It exposes the hidden costs, and broader social consequences of rising rates of intervention.

A must-see for all parents, and anyone intending to give birth, this feature-length movie about pregnancy, childbirth and the power of choice will change the way you view childbirth.

Choose how you want to get involved:
(Educational DVDs also available: Meet The Experts Educational & Birth Stories)

Watch the trailer:

History of The Rebozo Book

Submitted by Thea van Tuyl, Netherlands

The first time I met Naoli Vinaver, Mexican midwife, at a Midwifery Today conference, she was teaching about the Rebozo technique. She caught my attention immediately.

The Rebozo (cotton baby-carrier, shawl and tool to massage pregnant and birthing women) was used to relax, to move the mother, and to change the position of the baby. It looked so normal to do these things with a colourful Rebozo!

Since I waScreen Shot 2015-07-29 at 12.33.00 PMs present at the Midwifery Today Conferences in Europe every year, I saw more and more of the Rebozo technique. Not only from Naoli, but also from Mexican midwife Angelina Martinez. Every time they did a workshop I was there to learn more about all the possibilities of this wonderful towel. I learned for example; when the Rebozo was wrapped around the hips of the mother while she laid down on the floor she was moved or shaken, whatever she needed, and she felt great by this treatment. But the Rebozo could also be used to shake her pelvis when she was standing so the baby could bear down or find the right position. There were so many positions and ways to use the Rebozo! And when I started to try to do it in my own practice, it brought even more opportunities, possibilities and a lot of pleasure.

In 2006 the first Doula training started in the Netherlands and I was involved as a teacher. It was my task to teach the Rebozo to the new doula’s and it was great to do that. The doulas were excited and tried more and more at each other and later on at their clients. One of the doulas was my colleague childbirth educator, Mirjam de Keijzer, and we had a lot of contact. She told me about her experiences with her clients with the Rebozo and together we experimented with all kind of positions, rhythms, techniques etc…. Mirjam was a great Rebozo-user and so we both started to give workshops in our country.

There was nothing on the internet about the Rebozo. Sometimes an article or a report of the workshop at Midwifery Today, seldom a video on YouTube. And that was it. So we decided to write a book about this marvellous way of giving comfort to pregnant and birthing women, and not to forget; the beautiful tradition from Mexico, the closing massage for mothers in the post partum period. We started to write down the way the Rebozo can be used in several positions, and in different situations. We had a lot of pictures from the workshops we had given and Mirjam started to make drawings from these pictures. This made it possible to understand the text better . It became more and more a work book, an instruction on how to use the Rebozo.

Woman wearing Rebozo, Mexico
Hand-colored photography by Luis Marquez(photographer), 1937. Mexico

As we were not the ones who had spread this technique around the world, but the Mexican midwives, we contacted Naoli Vinaver and asked her to help us to do the right thing with the book. She wrote a preface and some parts for us and she read all our text and corrected where we were ‘wrong’. She helped us a lot to finish the book and had the roll of co-writer.

The first book came out in 2008 and was written in Dutch. In the Netherlands this way of giving comfort and massage to pregnant and birthing women was new and it came from a culture far from our cold country. Rebozo has everything to do with passion, with temperament and a kind of ‘fire’ in the blood. Things that we, Dutch girls, wanted to have, but we are certainly no Mexican girls.

So we decided to tell our participants of the workshops that we tried hard and did our best, but that we offered the Rebozo technique with a European ‘taste’.  Maybe a bit more stiff and very practical, but also from our hearts. Because it is a way of giving comfort, relaxation and movement that you only can give with your heart.

In 2009 we had translated the Rebozobook into English, with help of several English speaking women. We were so glad, that we could send the message of the Rebozo into the world. But how do you get the message all over the world from a tiny, little country like the Netherlands? We had our own website: www.rebozo.nl and we had even an English page on it. But not everybody got it via Google, I assume that it was only to be found via www.google.nl (the Dutch Google site).

We were very happy with the help of the Midwifery Today conferences that we could send the message about the book and the Rebozo via that canal. Teachers from the conference were very interested and Debra Pascali-Bonaro took it with her for her doula training and other kind of workshops. The Midwifery Today bookshop started to sell the book too! So the Rebozobook is now available in many ways for English speaking people.

The good news is that Naoli Vinaver will translate the book in Spanish and Portuguese, so it will be available for the Spanish and Portuguese speaking women. That will give the Rebozomassage even more power to reach a lot of pregnant women!

In the meantime the Rebozo got more and more attention in Europe and Mirjam and I were invited in many countries to do a Rebozo workshop. Midwives and doulas were excited about the easy way you can use the towel and started to practice- at first at home and later on with their clients. We found out that even other professions like therapists, teachers, physiotherapists, masseuses etc. were very interested in this way of giving massage. Women who work with children thought it a very good way of playing and helping children to move, to relax, to fall asleep.

The best are the stories of doulas or midwives who tell us that the Rebozo worked during a pregnancy or birth. One story is about a woman who was in labour and went to the hospital. Her partner and doula were with her. When she arrived she only had a few centimetres dilation and however her contractions went on and on, there was no progress.

The rule in the hospital was: if you did not had reached 4 cm dilation at 19.00 h. you needed to go to the ward, to get a rest, a sleep and you had to wait until the next morning for ‘the rest of your birth’. This woman really wanted to go on with her birth and did not like to go to the ward, but time was ticking and there was no progress. The doula thought that she could help with the Rebozo and asked the woman to sit on hands and knees on the bed. She wrapped the Rebozo around the pelvis and the bottom of the woman (like a candy or a tootsie-roll) and started to shake. The shaking was felt in the pelvis and the uterus and after a while the contractions got more powerful. When the midwife entered the room to check if the woman could stay or had to go to the ward, she found that she had reached her 4 cm dilation! So she could stay in the delivery room and she had a wonderful birth that night! Of course there is no evidence that the Rebozo did this job, but we are convinced that it certainly helped anyway! It is just an example how easy it is to use the Rebozo.  It will not work always, but you can try.

Find out how to use the Rebozo- buy the book, attend a workshop, or visit Midwifery Today or go to Brasil where Naoli Vinaver teaches the Rebozo technique. Do it and you will have so much pleasure with giving this kind of comfort or massage and you will be excited about the results!

www.rebozo.nl

www.nacimientonatural.com

www.midwiferytoday.com

Rachel’s Challenging Birth Experience

Mom, Rachel, & 6 month Ava at beach in the South of France.
Mom, Rachel, & 6 month Ava at beach in the South of France.

Submitted by: Rachel Elise Lockwood

Our birth story is a little complicated. My husband and I are British, and we had only just moved to France when we found out I was pregnant. Literally – we’d been there a week.

On top of that, we already had a three month holiday planned in the New Year for our wedding and honeymoon in New Zealand. It all went fine, right up until the end. We were actually staying in Sequoia National Park in California on our way home. We were in the mountains, the road was closed most of the day, it was snowing, and it was night time – when my water broke.

I didn’t know this is what it was. I always only 26 weeks pregnant. It didn’t come all at once, but every now and then, all night. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep. In fact I burst out crying in the early hours of the morning and my husband had to comfort me. I knew this wasn’t normal. I knew, from researching on the internet, that it was amniotic fluid. But I didn’t know what would happen next.

The next day we left the mountain. The fluid stopped coming, so we assumed that whatever had allowed it to come out had closed up. Our flight was booked for the following day from LA, so we decided that once we got home, we would check in at a hospital to make sure everything was ok. I was later told by my doctor that it was a miracle I didn’t go into labour, and if it had happened on the plane, it would have been disastrous. But it didn’t. In fact I was very upset by his words, which were by then unnecessary, but that’s something else.

Nothing more happened. We got back home to the UK and reached my brother-in-law’s house, where we were staying for a while before heading home to France. Within a couple of hours, I had some bleeding, so we went to the hospital. It was confirmed that I had no amniotic fluid. I had to have two steroid injections – OUCH! – and got transferred to another hospital with a Neonatal Unit. I spent 10 days in there but didn’t go into labour. I found out that she was lying sideways, and the placenta was so low that I would need to have a classical caesarean, which I was told would mean I could never have a vaginal birth, ever. I was devastated by it all. I had planned to have a homebirth, all natural. It was my greatest desire. And this was the opposite of it all. They showed us the Neonatal Unit, and it was the first time I’d ever seen a premature baby. They looked so small and fragile, I burst into tears. It was horrible beyond words.

They were happy to leave baby inside, as long as I didn’t get an infection. I was let out of hospital and we went to stay with friends. Throughout this time I had to wear large pregnancy pads because I was constantly losing fluid, which is a very uncomfortable feeling, like being incontinent – and always tinged with fear, as one time a blood clot came out, so I was always having to run and check whether there was any blood. A week later, I went into labour – on my husband’s birthday. I spent a couple of days in light labour – baby was actually enjoying it, or so they told me – when one evening I had a serious amount of bleeding. The placenta – problematic throughout the whole pregnancy – had come away. That was it. I was wheeled into the delivery suite, where I was examined by the doctor. Immediately after that I was taken to the operating room. My husband couldn’t come in because I was having general anaesthetic. I felt so alone.

There were so many people in there, rushing around. I have no idea what half of them were doing. I was crying and shaking like a leaf, I was terrified, for myself and for the baby. I’ve never spent much time in hospital before, let alone had an operation. Funnily enough, I’ve always wondered what it’s like to have general anaesthetic! People were prodding things into me, inserting cannulas, plus a catheter, and I had to drink this nasty liquid as I had just eaten dinner. Not long after that – probably one of the worst times of my life – I was out like a light.

I woke up in a different room, and my mum and husband came in. Apparently I was very dozy and saying odd things. That would be the morphine.  Later in the night, a nurse delivered a picture of my baby to me, on request, but I didn’t see her till about 9am the next day. My mum is still furious that they took so long about it. I was a bit too out of it on drugs to realise. Even when I saw her, I was nervous, but I didn’t feel too much. It was all just very strange. I was exhausted and spaced out. It wasn’t until the next day, when I was off the morphine, that I crashed. I cried on and off all day. I cried when I watched her wailing in her incubator – a strange, premature baby mewl that I had never heard before, that just sounded so wrong to my ears. She looked so tiny and fragile, I just wanted to pick her up and put her back in. I was in shock I think. I was horrified that she was outside of me now, when she wasn’t supposed to be. I felt like I had failed as a mother somehow, not being a safe place to be inside. I don’t blame myself anymore, but it’s how I felt then. I felt grief and anger over the homebirth that I had lost, and also suddenly not being pregnant anymore, when I had only had seven months of it. I was also scared of my caesarean wound; I didn’t want to look at it. And on top of all that, I was sure my milk wasn’t coming in as I was struggling to express anything (stress, my mother tells me – she’s a midwife).

Anyway, this was probably the worst day. After that, I was able to leave the hospital, which was a relief, although we had to leave our baby behind. Over the next seven weeks our lives were driving back and forth from the hospital, which thankfully wasn’t far away. Ava did amazingly from the beginning; she was a fighter. She had a bit of jaundice and reflux, but that was it. She was born at 3llbs, 7oz, at 29+4 weeks gestation, which is a good size. I healed from the caesarean and buried all the pain for a while. A couple of weeks after she was born I got sick and had to stay away from the Special Care unit for about 7 days, which was awful, but also a blessing – I desperately needed rest. To be honest, I don’t know how c-section mums cope with a baby at home!

My husband was my rock the whole way through. He always kept calm while I was an emotional wreck, crying all the time. He was gentle, strong and loving for me and Ava. He never faltered and I love him for that. He looked after me well while I was recovering.

Breastfeeding was a challenge. It turned out I had more than enough milk. Through double-pumping, I ended up with an entire (large) freezer-full that I was able to donate to a nearby hospital, which was lovely. Ava was too young for a long time to manage breastfeeding. She also had tongue-tie, which we discovered after a couple of weeks of trying. They clipped it and not long after she got it. We had a lot of support from the nurses and lactation consultant, but we were one of the only couples trying to exclusively breastfeed a premature baby. Most other preemies are breast and bottle, or just bottle. It did mean staying in there a little longer while she got the hang of it, but we didn’t mind. We also had to say no to a pacifier several times, as they are widely used in the Unit.

We couldn’t have been more blessed with the staff. The nurses were so friendly, and so were the other parents. There was a kind of camaraderie between us – we were all here for the same reason, for our premature or unwell babies. When Ava was a bit older, were actually allowed to take her out in the pram for a while. The other plus was that his hospital practiced Kangaroo Care with preemies, as do most hospitals I think now. So we got to hold her all the time. We’d spend hours there taking turns with her asleep on our chests, skin to skin. She spent nearly the first two months of her life sound asleep. Also, as a parent you could visit the Unit 24 hours a day, they always welcomed you.

Mom & AvaFinally, Ava got the breastfeeding. They moved us into a Transitional Care Unit, which is usually for new mums and babies, but they made an exception for us. A few days in there and we were ready to go! We finally took her home, three weeks before her due date, weighing just about 6 lbs. She is now a healthy ten-month-old, she is bouncy, not far off crawling, and still loves nursing, although now she loves other food too! She has no medical problems, and I have worked through much of my grief and trauma and come out smiling on the other side. I hope to have a VBAC someday. Right now, I am happy to have a nice healthy, normal baby. It might sound strange, but one of the difficult things I found with a premature baby is waiting for the interaction. With most babies, it’s about six weeks for that first smile – with Ava, it was almost four months. I was so desperate for it by then! Now, she smiles and shouts and plays and wriggles, it’s lovely. It makes all that terrible time sink into the past.

I’m sharing this story for any other mums out there who have been through difficulties in their births (which is many). Partly, because it helps to read about similar experiences – I have done it a lot! – and also to remind those who may be struggling that – “this too shall pass”. That’s a saying that has got me through many things, because it’s true. There is light at the end of the tunnel. If you can just get through the difficult bit, it will one day be over, and you can take a deep breath and smile. Once you’re on that other side, you are a survivor, and you’re stronger for it – even if it doesn’t always feel that way!

 

New Rebozo Workshop 4-CEUs

Debra teach Rebozo

Debra now offering a Rebozo Workshop for 4 CEUs!

Join Debra Pascali-Bonaro for a rebozo workshop to learn how to use your rebozo to offer comfort, relaxation and massage during pregnancy, labor, birth and postpartum.

Throughout her-story, traditional midwives have used the rebozo to protect the energy of the healer and to gently pass the energy on during childbirth and beyond. At the workshop, you will begin to embed it with your sacred energy while learning about the her-story of the rebozo as well as many practical uses and positions.

Debra will guide you thru techniques and positions that offer comfort, relaxation, and massage as well as techniques to encourage movement and rotation. In addition to learning the positions and techniques there will be opportunity to discuss where and how to apply them- home or hospital, bed or birth ball, early or active labor. The workshop will also teach participants how to engage partners in the comforting and rhythmic rebozo dance.

Bring your rebozo with you or buy one at the workshop. This workshop includes a one-hour break for sharing a meal while watching an inspirational birth film. Join Debra for a fun, creative, interactive workshop to enhance you skills and nurture your spirit with the rebozo.

Please contact us for rates and schedule at debrapascalibonaro [AT] gmail.com and please indicate in which city or town you wish the workshop to take place. Thank you!

Become Affiliate for Pleas. Birth Videos

Pleasureable BirthDo you have your own blog or website? Now you can now become an Affiliate for the Pleasurable Birth Workshop videos and earn 10% for every rental or purchase, just for having the tab on your site! To get started, visit our Pleasurable Birth Workshop Videos Page and click on the video share link and you will be lead thru the simple process. And always feel free to contact us at debrapascalibonaro [AT] gmail.com to get started.

Two-Minutes of Lactivism from Jill

Submitted by Jill Wodnick, M.A., LCCE

Social Determinants on Birth: A Call for Doula Training Organizations to Address Perinatal Disparaties

The city of Newark, NJ demands our attention in the birth world. Is it the 40% of Newark mothers who received late or no prenatal care; is it the 694 (15%) mothers who were breastfeeding upon hospital discharge, or is it that the time to prove to policy makers that social determinants of health are the elephant in the room….it is time to look at the big picture and focus on eradicating & eliminating poverty and racism as the tool to improve birth.

Indiana African American BF Coalition For too many doulas, they will be able to offer words of comfort and use a rebozo, but may never have had the training to learn about perinatal disparities and social determinants on health. We know about the high cesarean birth rate, but what about perinatal disparities which impact breastfeeding rates as well as birth outcomes.

Social determinants of health is defined as factors such as income, education, occupation, employment, housing, child care, family structure, and neighborhood characteristics, which are thought to have powerful effects on health and yet are beyond the reach of medical care.

If you have not heard of how social determinants impact health, hear the words from the Association for Children of NJ, a non profit, non partisan group that just conducted their annual Kid’s Count data, consider this: ‘A baby born in Newark today will likely be born to a single mother who at best, has only a high school education and is working at a low paying job. Most of her paycheck will go to rent, leaving little left over for food….Her job is not likely to offer health benefits, so she may not receive the early prenatal care that can reduce the risk that her baby will be born premature…”

The data reveals that a disproportionate amount of young children in Newark spend their first years in poverty. Paul Tough’s new book “How Children Succeed” examines how  poverty-related stress can affect brain development, and inhibit the development of non-cognitive skills. He argues that persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence, are more crucial than sheer brainpower to achieving success and these non cognitive skills are deeply impacted by the prenatal and infant relationships.

It seems that Newark Mayor Cory Booker had read ‘How Children Succeed.’ At the Kids Count data presentation on February 6, 2013,  he spoke of early experiences mattering, singing to 7 month babies and the impact of stress in the prenatal period. He also spoke of the impact of poverty on parenting.

But what he did not speak about, was the value of reducing barriers to promote exclusive breastfeeding as a strategy to improve children’s health. New Jersey has the highest rate of obesity among low income children, ages 2-5 since 2008. As birth professionals, we know the U.S. Surgeon General’s Call to Action documents that breastfeeding is a preventative  behavior that can reduce childhood obesity, asthma and juvinille diabetes, in addition to fostering social and emotional bonds of attachment between that mother and baby. As Newark, NJ has for this moment has a funding commitment to create a Newark Early Childhood Council from the Foundation for Newark’s Future, we must take this moment to share the evidence, science and psychology that links exclusive breastfeeding to health indicators and the multi faceted tools to reduce barriers, especially for women of color and low income mothers.

Alas, too many doulas have never been taught about perinatal disparities in birth outcomes.  It is imperative that all doula training programs have as part of their training a curriculum that examines disparities in birth outcomes and the role of social determinants on health.

Newark NJ Housing & Urban Development has started ‘cradle to college initiatives’ and many school districts across the country are now looking at the birth and perinatal period as formative experiences for the classroom. Doulas and birth professionals are at a pivitol crossroads right now with a myriad of public and private initiatives recognizing that birth and breastfeeding outcomes are more optimal with a trained doula or community peer educator. Yet too many doula training programs do not address the disparities in birth outcomes  nor link healthy birth and breastfeeding to life long children’s health.

I go back to the words of Paul Tough, “The part of the brain most affected by early stress is the prefrontal cortex, which is critical in self-regulatory activities of all kinds, both emotional and cognitive. As a result, children who grow up in stressful environments generally find it harder to concentrate, harder to sit still, harder to rebound from disappointments and harder to follow directions. And that has a direct effect on their performance in school. When you’re overwhelmed by uncontrollable impulses and distracted by negative feelings, it’s hard to learn the alphabet.”

The link between racism, poverty and perinatal outcomes are clear. The link between exclusive breastfeeding and children’s health indicators are clear.  The link of woman to woman support is clear. We can contribute to a more just, healthy and sustainable world by making an impact on birth and breastfeeding.  Imagine if all birth professionals learned about their role in the cradle to college pipeline and their work was put in the context of social determinants. Imagine if all the birth professionals wrote a few sentences to the Foundation for Newark’s Future asking them to fund a sustainable and innovative community based breastfeeding program with measurable goals and outcomes. One woman at a time, I pray a better world; for welcoming centers of integrative care, of respectful births, of indivisible breastfeeding support and the lullabyes for all children. Please read the poem by Ina Hughes– it reminds me of why I pray for all children and why our work in woman to woman support must continue.

Additional resources:
http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/research/opportunity-communities/
http://buildingblocksalamedacounty.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/kellogg-foundation-to-fund-best-babies-zone-in-alameda-county/
http://www.cpehn.org/pdfs/Achieving%20Greater%20Health%20-%20Shrimali%206-12.pdf http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/assets/uploads/file/ClosingTheGapBWBirthOutcome.pdf http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/calls/breastfeeding/calltoactiontosupportbreastfeeding.pdf

Sample letter you can write to Foundation for Newark’s Future:
http://foundationfornewarksfuture.org/contact/
Dear Foundation for Newark Future, as a childbirth professional, I am so excited for your commitment to improve the early experiences of infants and toddlers in the City of Newark announced at the ACNJ Kids Count Data. As you are finding programs to fund with measurable outcomes,  please consider a community breastfeeding initiative.   NJ has the highest rate of obesity among low income children ages 2-5 since 2008 and that exclusive BF is a health behavior that impacts literally reduces childhood obesity, asthma and juvinile diabetes, in addition to the social and emotional attachment and engagement of mothers and babies.  A community based BF program which has had great success in many other cities could enhance and compliment the health of all families in the city of Newark and work with linakages and collaborations.  I am happy to share resources on evidence based community breastfeeding programs, like the COPE Perinatal/JJ Way Community Lactation program from Orlando, FL or the Health Connect One breastfeeding program from Chicago in addition to social media programs like Best for Babes that focus on reducing barriers to exclusive BF.  I am happy to share my ideas and support for this initiative and would like to set a phone call to share  the science about why BF is linked to improving health outcomes and shaping the early experiences of new families in need.

(your name and number)