Awaken Your Inner Wisdom

Baby Bumps, Thought Bumps & Holding Our Very First Newborn

Submitted by Laura Vladimirova

Some awakenings happen in the midst of serious conflict, when ideas crash up against the walls of your mind. Sometimes they happen in the least expected of moments, like when a thought sort of just bumps around. It can stew there for some time and eventually set off a cascade of new ideas that transform our whole philosophies. My most recent realization, or thought bump, happened at an art opening in downtown Manhattan, and it’s changed my thinking about womanhood ever since.

I had just come from the final day of my doula training with Debra Pascali Bonaro at Birth Day Presence. I was filled with inspiration about caretakers, babies and birth. The art gallery was getting crowded, friends were walking in and drinks were everywhere. The vibe was warm, though I admit, I was only somewhat present at the event — my mind was truly elsewhere.

Cut to twenty minutes later and in walks a stunningly glowing woman with a chunky baby in her arms and her bearded partner in tow. Baby was totally cool as a cucumber, even when he was passed around from friend to cooing friend. He was happily entertained by the colors of the art, lights and laughter surrounding him. When he reached my arms, holding the sweet 5-month-old was a treat after having spent days talking about happy, healthy moms and babies. When mom came to check on her son, I asked if this was her first. She proudly nodded yes. She also mentioned that this was the first baby she had ever held.

That’s the moment when my thoughts bumped.

I wondered how old I was when I held my first newborn. I recalled I was in my late 20s, after a dear friend had given birth to her first son. I was graciously invited to the hospital to meet him, and as soon as I got there, she put him in my arms. I remember that he felt heavier than I’d expected a newborn to feel and that was surprising to me at the time.

After I left the gallery, I questioned how common it was for women in our society to have only held a few, or even no newborns before they had their own children. In societies where caretakers live closer together and depend more on each other, babies are passed around like the baby at the gallery. Young women (and men) become accustomed to being babysitters. They learn how to change a baby, entertain a baby, and provide support for mom early on.

I asked myself if experience like this was something that was missing from our modern world. For example, does not spending time with nursing mothers and not getting peed on when changing a baby (until we have our own) affect us psychologically or emotionally?

I began to ask around. I asked friends with kids, I asked friends without kids and I asked older women about their first time seeing, holding and interacting with a newborn.

So many women responded in the same way that I had. If they had older siblings or cousins, they had babies to play with. But many women did not hold a newborn until their late 20s or older. And mostly, it was their firstborn child.

I felt like I had missed out on opportunities as a young girl to better understand what it means to be a mama and create a bond with the miracles that surround pregnancy. All of the women I had interviewed had felt this way too. One woman said that not having had any experience with babies gave her parenting anxiety when she found out she was pregnant. Later, after she delivered a healthy baby girl, she felt relieved when she began to trust her instincts as a new mother.

Am I suggesting we as women just go up to strangers in the street and ask them to hold their babies? Well, that probably wouldn’t fly in NYC. Yet, there may be things we can do. Perhaps, if we open up our circle of sisters, we can consider this a a slow, but helpful thought bump for ourselves and any young women around us, like a neighbor or distant family member. We can help plant seeds of experience and confidence, seeds that say ‘holding a baby is a beautiful, empowering moment.’

Get the latest updates about workshops & schedules in Debra’s weekly enews.

Laura Vladimirova is a DONA-trained doula currently working towards becoming a certified nurse midwife. She aims to provide emotional, physical and spiritual support during pregnancy, labor, delivery and postpartum. She’s passionate about her role as a member of the birthing team and focuses on giving families space to make empowered choices, be it clinical or holistic. In between helping families achieve powerful and fulfilling birth experiences, she’s a maternity photographer and communications specialist living in Brooklyn, NY. She can be reached at NaturalBirthBebe@gmail.com.

Ceremony Shows Way to Ward Off Birth Fears

Salamat Hari Raya Nyepi, 2014

I am writing on the eve of Nyepi, the Balinese Hindu New Year, after a enjoying a day of silent reflection; the whole island of Bali is dark, no lights, no traffic, no planes and no sound. The sky is sparkling with stars, often not seen, due to all our lights. It is so peaceful. I have the feeling that comes over me at a birth- the world stops and nothing else matters, the sacredness of new life, the connection to the divine in each of us can be felt. I feel a deep sacred connection to nature.

Last night, like labor, the feeling was completely different and much more intense. Over the last few weeks, each village made several large Ogoh-Ogoh statues made of papier-mache symbolizing negative elements and evil spirits. The main purpose of the making of Ogoh-ogoh is for the purification of the natural environment of any spiritual pollutants. The Ogoh-ogoh represents the Bhuta-Kala (Bhuta: eternal energy, Kala: eternal time), according to Hindu teachings. The imperceptible potentials of nature cannot be thoroughly explored by anyone. Philosophically, civilized men are required to manage the natural resources without damaging the environment itself. What a wonderful thought to apply to birth, to honor and trust nature and not to damage it by overuse of technology.

As the sunset, groups of boys, teenagers, young and older men carried the Ogoh-ogoh on their shoulders. A large and loud procession accompanied by tradition Gamelan music played as the entire village came out to join the procession and walk the village to ward off the evil spirit. Several of the Eat Pray Doulas and their families joined in. During the procession, the Ogoh-ogoh is rotated counter-clockwise three times. This is done at every crossroad of the village. Rotating the Ogoh-Ogoh represents the contact of the bodies with the spirits. It is intended to bewilder the evil spirits so that they go away and cease harming human beings. After all the activity the island goes silent. Like labor, lots of work and intensity and then the peaceful moment of holding your newborn in your arms, resting after all your hard work. Just like birth it is important to ask – How do you ward of your fears and demons? I love the Ogoh- Ogoh’s and all it symbolizes. It gives us a chance to voice our fears and demons and to have a way to both symbolically and today in meditation and prayer to release and chase them away. Wouldn’t it be fun to make our own dolls/puppets or item that could hold all our fears and negative things we have heard about childbirth? To find our own way to release them, or as they do here to burn them and take a day to sit in silence and reflect as tomorrow begin the Balinese New Year, with new beginnings. I am humbled to have shared in these sacred ceremonies and to look at ways we can reclaim our sacred rituals in childbirth too.

As I look at the sky sparkling tonight, I think of each of you around the world. I hope you too can look at the stars tonight and feel the peace we feel in Bali on this sacred eve. May the stars fill your heart with love and help you release your fears and demons.

How will you release your fears in childbirth? Please share your stories and ideas so we can reclaim sacred traditions and create new rituals in childbirth.

Join me at Eat Pray Doula

Fall 2014 or Spring 2015

Laughter in Labor Invites Pleasurable Birth

I am writing as I listen to great laughter emanating from the Balinese who have gathered for the afternoon Laughing Yoga in the village of Nyuh Kuning. Just hearing the laughter from my room I am smiling and can feel the change in my body. What makes you smile inside and out? What can you do to bring that feeling to you in labor and childbirth? To laugh, releases our stress. It’s hard to stay in the fear-tension-pain-cycle that so many women get stuck in during labor, when you smile and use laughter in labor. It feels so nice hear the laughter. I am drawn to go see them. I join the crowd gathering as everyone smiles and laughs, it is contagious and feels so good! I can feel the beta-endorphins, the hormones of pleasure flowing.

The effects of laughter are amazing including a reduction in blood pressure and significant drop in cortisol levels equating to a stress-free experience. When we laugh, more oxygen ends up in the tissues of the body. Laughter also encourages the body to produce oxytocin, the same hormones released during labor which relaxes the cervix. Laughter has also been shown to reduce pain by blocking the message to the brain that pain is occurring. – Guardian Liberty Voice

What does it feel like when you change your hormones? We all know that feeling when we are scared or stressed. You can feel the change in your body as our stress hormones flow and tension takes hold of your body. Check-in with how you are feeling at this moment…. Now watch this laughing baby:

How do you feel now? Within 90 seconds you can begin to understand how there are many simple and subtle ways we can change our hormonal flow and transform pain to power and pleasure in birth.

Recently I spent the day at the Water Temples in Bali with our Eat Pray Doulas. Water is the element of emotion. We could feel our emotions flowing with each sacred blessing, water flowing from deep within the earth poured on us. Each fountain blessing us with it’s element as we held our intention, the water cleansing us and touching us in so many emotional ways. The cool water on our hot skin, we held reverence as we each connected to the divine energy within us in our unique ways. Peace poured over us and again we changed our physiology and released our stress hormones, moving to calm, connection and the hormone of love- oxytocin was released with prayer and meditation.

As I lay by the pool, savoring the memories of our special week together, we talked about Orgasmic Birth. The feelings of surrender, peace, joy and love that we have felt are exactly what is needed to bring us pleasure in birth too. Take time to feel your body, understand what brings you comfort, calm, love and pleasure and find simple ways to bring this to birth is the beginning of transforming pain to power in childbirth and beyond.

Please share in our comments what tips, techniques, or tools have you used, or will you use, to move from pain to pleasure, to transform you hormones from stress, tension, pain to calm connection, love and pleasure?

Learn how you can join us at Eat Pray Doula this Fall 2014 or Spring 2015!

An Eat Pray Doula Lesson in (Re)Establishing Love

My journey to Bali began almost 30 years ago when Robin and I began our connection as passionate, young, postpartum doulas. Like many friends who hold a place in our heart, yet our lives take us in different direction, we went years without seeing each other, although I always followed Robin’s amazing work in Bali and felt our connection.

Robin and I both shared a special friendship with amazing midwife, Mary Kroeger. Mary kindled our connections and taught us each so much. Mary taught us both to be a birth warrior with love not anger as anger closes people’s hearts and if we want to transform birth we must open all our hearts. Mary’s transformational book Impact of Birthing Practices on Breastfeeding, with Linda Smith, was the first book that helped us understand- if we want to fix breastfeeding we must fix birth! Mary’s vision of creating an international version of the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative began the International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative where human rights, quality care for MotherBaby and love, bring the care of the Mother along with the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative for breastfeeding together. We continue the IMBCI in Mary’s memory, vision and wisdom as while she is no longer with us, she is always in our hearts

When Mary was passing she knew I loved her purple sarong. She gave it to me and shared that Ibu Robin had giving it to her. She asked me to do 2 things, 1) to chair and continue the IMBCI, and 2) to go to Bali to bring the sarong back to where it came from and reconnect with Robin. What an honor to have two such amazing tasks to do to fulfill her wishes. I have done both.

Coming to Bali the first time 4 years ago, I was not prepared for how much my re-connection with Robin would awaken a deep part of my passion and soul and take me to a place where I now call Bali my home away from home. Together we vision Eat Pray Doula as a way to share the magic of Bali and the wisdom of the birthkeepers with women from around the world. With a vision this big we knew we needed a third partner to birth our dreams. Another midwife Katherine Bramhall. Katherine had trained as a doula with me many years ago; she went on to become a midwife, connected with Robin and is now Chair of the Bumi Sehat Birth Center. The circle felt perfect, Mary working her magic in bringing us together so we can bring others together.

Today as I listen to Katherine teaching that time will heal, I look around our circle into the eyes of our amazing doulas from around the world. I feel the connections that keep growing knowing that reconnecting the circle of women, is the beginning of healing birth, healing women to birth their dreams and visions for their children, families, friends and planet.

On this day, Katherine teaches about breastfeeding after a challenging birth, step #1) “re-establish love.” Love will get the hormones flowing and re-empower the mother regardless of her circumstances. In the Philippines, Indonesia, Haiti and in any areas where there has been natural disaster, we want to protect the sacred time after birth for MotherBaby and must help re-establish love. This special quiet skin-to-skin time is essential in any situation. Dim the lights, create a sense of privacy and intimacy so the MotherBaby breast crawl will happen in it’s own time.

I listen to today’s Eat Pray Doula discussion and think again of Mary, how proud she would be that her knowledge and wisdom is being passed on. She has connected a circle that grows and grows.

Eat Pray Doula Will you join us at the next EPD Workshop? Are you being called to join the circle of women around the world? We are women, mothers, teachers, acupuncturist, yoga teachers, educators, doulas, midwives, lactation consultants, nurses, grandmothers, sisters, and more. We invite you to join us to birth your dreams in Bali.

Wake up, woman! Follow Your Pleasure

Submitted by Marcy Sauter

Have you ever been moved to tears while watching someone do exactly what they were put on this planet to do? I have, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful scenes to behold. Perhaps it’s a musician that plays beautiful music, or a gardener that has a gift to keep a bounty of fruits and vegetables growing, the ballet dancer that pliés his way across the stage, the cook that pours her heart and soul into the fresh cookies she bakes and the jam she lovingly makes for her friends, the attorney that fights for justice with passion, the mama that raises her children with love and kindness, the math teacher that shares his knowledge through carefully designed lessons, or the surgeon that gives hope to the dying, or the midwife that lovingly catches babies.

I often wonder what gift or talent we’re missing out on because someone is not heeding the call of their desire. It makes me sad to think that I haven’t heard the song that’s hiding beneath that seed of doubt within someone’s heart. It’s heartbreaking that a poem wasn’t shared with others due to a fear of sounding imperfect, and tragic to think of the athlete who won’t train because they were told they wouldn’t achieve success by pursuing the potential that their body held.

How different would our world be if each and every person did what they were created to do? How would your life be if you didn’t live within the expectations of culture, gender, family, tradition, or worse, self-doubt? If you shed every label that was placed upon you, what would you be capable of? How would you be living your life differently than you are now?

Our society is really good at labeling us from birth.

Good baby, bad baby
Good sleeper, bad sleeper
Big baby, little baby
Happy baby, fussy baby, and the list goes on.

Beyond infancy, these labels continue to weigh us down, and sometimes they define us. They threaten to convert us into what we aren’t meant to be.

When I was a kid, well-meaning people told me things that made me ashamed to be the way I was, making me feel like a weirdo. As I shed the labels that were put upon me, the passion for life began to burn in me again. The realization that I am different is now comforting. There is no one on this planet who is just like I am! How cool is that? There’s no one just like you, either.

We are amazing!

The women with whom I work, and my new understanding of this concept of living, have inspired me to write this poem. My hope is that you’ll start shedding the layer of labels which prevent you from doing what you were meant to do in this life. The world waits for you to wake up and share your gift.

Wake up, woman! Have you gone to sleep?

Have you lost yourself in culture? Are you in deep?

Have you been put upon a shelf?

And lost your soul, your voice, yourself?

It’s time! The time is now!

You may think twice, you don’t know how!

You’ve been reduced to few roles

Your heart, your mind, it’s taken its toll

So now it’s time, you must not sleep

Your life awaits, don’t live as sheep

There’s so much more that’s in that box

The key is there, unlock the lock

Wake up, woman! Don’t you forget

Don’t slumber on, or you’ll regret

Waste not the days, or months, or years

Lest you grow old, and drown in tears

Awaken!

Marcy Stevens Sauter is an IBCLC and PCD (DONA) with her company Rest Assured Postpartum Doula Care serving greater Orange County, CA and Los Angeles County, CA.

Edited by M.L.

Join Debra in Italy this summer!

This March Stand and Deliver!

This week I enjoyed sharing my passion for Human Rights in Childbirth at New York University (NYU) with midwifery, nursing and law students. It is an honor to take students around the world with images and stories of current human rights movements and point out all the ways that our current broken maternity care system violates women’s rights to evidence based care and informed decision making even here in NYC. Of course if you know me, I don’t like to dwell on the negative, I like to share what is possible and look at models that get it right! I hope to inspire you to action as together we can change and engage everyone in a healthy maternity model. In doing that I love to site my favorite birth slogan “Stand and Deliver – Don’t Take it Lying Down!!”

It’s so hard for me to consider how we have literally put women down. Science shows us all the benefits of moving in childbirth and birthing using gravity. Gravity works! By putting women down, labor is longer, more painful, increases use of oxytocin/pitocin, epidurals and decreases pleasure.

This week Vicki Elson, another filmmaker whose work I have enjoyed showing how the media influences our perceptions of childbirth in her great documentary Laboring Under and Illusion, shared Sharon Muza article published in Science and Sensibility. Sharon compared Lamaze Healthy Birth Practices with the realities reported in Childbirth Connection’s 2013 Listening To Mothers III Report, a survey of 2400 U.S. mothers. For Lamaze’s Healthy Birth Practice 2: Walk, Move Around and Change Positions in Labor.

Only 43% of women walked around after being admitted to the hospital and

Only 40% used movement or position changes as a form of non-pharmacological pain relief.

I will address this more in the future as we know leaning forward and moving offers comfort and can shorten labor.

Lamaze Healthy Birth Practice 5 States: Avoid Giving Birth on Your Back and Follow Your Body’s Urges to Push. It is so sad to learn that 68% of American women gave birth on their backs. This is crazy! When you wonder how birth can be pleasurable, it’s hard to find pleasure or comfort when women who want to stand are treated as they are crazy and our broken system puts pressure on you to conform to outdated practices, takes your power and often your voice away from you on a day that has the ability to be full of power, pleasure and possibilities.

Let’s start a facebook and twitter storm of powerful birth quotes and slogans.

Join me in creating a list of quotes that speak up and stand for women’s right to a blissful, transformative, pleasurable birth. Share you tweet and tag us with the hashtag #OrgasmicBirth

Sing a New Song for Ina May & Int’l Women’s Day

March 8th is International Woman’s Day and it is also Ina May’s birthday! To celebrate want to share a couple special things that will be happening with Ina May and elsewhere…

Photo credit: http://girlinflorence.com/2012/03/05/womens-day-in-florence-ideas-and-mimosas-incoming/

One is that tomorrow, in Debra’s ancestor’s village of Agerola on the Amalfi Coast of Italy, they will be celebrating International Woman’s Day as one of their Festivals of Life. On this day all the women in Agerola are celebrated. Women are given Mimosa flowers and taken out to dinner, as the men celebrate the women in their village, together they remember the many women who live in much more challenging situations. Read Debra’s blog about Agerola and the many festivals there.

Everybody sing: “Let your monkey do it!”

We are also celebrating Ina May Gaskin, world-renowned midwife, on International Woman’s day as it is also her Birthday! Debra is honored to call Ina May a special friend. We are very grateful to Angelika Rodler and Marion Ritz-Valentin who came up with a very creative way to support Ina May. Angelika and Marion created a special song, “the crowd:loving:birthsong:experiment” (song excerpted in video below). To support Ina May everyone on the obirth team will be purchasing the download for a mere $1.29 and sharing this great opportunity with our friends and colleagues. Every single cent of income is donated to Ina May and her projects. Happy Birthday Ina May!

“A new and juicy way to show our love and sisterhood in action….so please share with your friends and lets start an amazing lovestorm for our hero!”

Join us as we continue to advocate for every woman’s human rights in childbirth and beyond as well as to celebrate Ina May and her lifetime of work to create safe, respectful and healthy births for all MotherBaby’s.

Ina May Gaskin is our hero. She inspires us to be joyful, brave and funny, she tells us stories we´ll never forget. Because of her teachings so many women have been empowered to explore birth as their holy sacrament. She´s also a hero for m…any midwives, a heartfealt teacher and researcher. Nobody can count all the positive effects of her work for the birth-culture all over the world. For me –and I know that thousands of women will agree – she was the one who changed everything I thought about childbirth. I wouldn’t be the same and my lovely birthstories would sound different without her wisdom. Since many years Ina May is educating my Austrian Doulatribe and the midwives here. I heart so many people thanking her with tears of love in their eyes – we are so many everywhere on this planet! My biggest wish is to say “thank you”, but not only with words. Let´s show Ina May our love and support with this the crowd:loving:birthsong:experiment.

How will you celebrate International Women’s Day? A day to honor women and our collective efforts for equality. What festival and rituals do you have in your family and region of the world or will you create a new one? Please share your story and ceremonies here or on our facebook page.

Ecological Model of Birth from Midwife Verena Schmid

“We know from research that if there is harmony in the team that works together, the health of the mother is better.” – Verena Schmid Cert. Midwife

Here is an illustration and video clip of Midwife Verena Schmid sharing her concept of “ecological human system that helps us to understand how the mother is very important for the baby but not she alone, that everybody has the responsibility for the well-being of the baby and it helps us to understand also the position of the support professionals and helpers should be.”

Verena Schmid, certified midwife; international teacher in Salutophysiology and Salutogenesis in midwifery; founder and director of the i

nternational school of Midwifery Art in Florence, Italy and the professional magazine D&D, Donna e Donna; author of professional books for midwives and promoter of self determined, conscious childbirth, project leader of the “Centro Benessere Maternità” in Florence. Verena promotes midwifery within a health paradigm and normal birth on different levels: practical, political, cultural and professional. For this engagement she was awarded by the international award Astrid Limburg in 2000.

: Do you want to dive-in as registrant or stay on dry-land as affiliate? Tap the toes for more info about the trip.