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What’s it like to take a doula training?

Curious about what it is like to take a doula training? What types of things you will learn, what the atmosphere is like? Read a recent testimonial that was shared with us from one of Debra’s trainings

The training exceeded my expectations. I now know how to be a great Birth and Postpartum Doula. The information and literature was extremely helpful and invigorating. I learned about the joys and challenges that may arise during the mother’s transition into motherhood when she arrives home from the hospital and how important my role is as a Postpartum Doula.

The instructor was awesome. She was knowledgeable, and explained everything in detail to us. Debra did various demonstrations and so did we, which made the class so exciting. Some nights we had homework and everyone was eager to present the next day. Our instructor shared her experiences of being a Doula with us, the good, the bad, the indifferent and we were just in awe at the stories she told us. She was uplifting and empowering. We also learned the Business aspect of being a Doula; such as ensuring our paperwork is accurate and in order and to take good notes at all times and over all how important documentation is. We also received marketing tips on how to present ourselves to the public. I have a clear understanding of how to obtain my certification, which I am looking forward to.

Lastly, I had the distinct honor and pleasure of being in the midst of such beautiful women of all cultures they were, kind, giving, talented, wise, intelligent, funny and grateful. The room was filled with love. Love for the lives that we will touch as Doulas. We shared stories of motherhood, recipes, resources, smiles, tears and laughter. We bonded and are now Doula sisters.

Again thank you I am truly Grateful,
~Patrina Owens

LET THE CIRCLE BE OPEN BUT NOT UNBROKEN

Interested in becoming a doula and want to learn more?

Community Doula Program

rotondi+birth-1 by Regina M. Conceição, BA, CD(DONA), CLC

My first doula experience happened when I was 13 years old, although I didn’t know it at the time. Every day after school towards the end of my aunt’s pregnancy my mother would send me over for a couple of hours to help her with chores around the house. I remember Titi Manda being so big and swollen and unable to bend down and dust her living room end tables. My job was to take care of the dishes, help her with the cleaning and just make her feel more comfortable in general. When my cousin was born I still loved helping. I changed diapers, kept the baby entertained and helped by putting him to sleep. I loved it so much and my Aunt loved the help so much that when she was pregnant again four years later I willingly took the chance to be by her side and help out. Despite the fact this was my own family, these experiences ignited a lifelong commitment to serve and support mothers during their time of need.

Fast forward to the end of my junior year in college I discovered midwifery and doula care in one of my Women’s Studies courses. Learning about midwifery struck a chord with me and I made the decision to become a doula after doing a little more research on what exactly a doula did. I enrolled at Hands of Light a traditional midwifery and healing arts school in Fitchburg, Mass that offered one weekend a month classes on becoming a doula and DONA doula training as well. I traveled from CT one weekend a month for a year and received my doula certification.

In 2004 I was hired by Columbia University Early Head Start’s newly formed Perinatal Support Program (PSP). At PSP I assisted with organizing our program’s doula training with Debra Bascali-Bonaro. After receiving my second DONA doula training I worked towards my certification. At PSP I was able to provide doula services to pregnant mothers living below the poverty line and living in under-served communities. Providing doula services to PSP participants I was able to hone in on my skills on how to support mothers and their families. I learned how to provide education, logistical planning, and social support to help reduce stress associated with preterm labor and connect families to community resources. I officially became a certified DONA doula in 2007 and established my doula business, A Passion for New Beginnings, Inc. (APNB). After 5 years at Columbia University Early Head Start Perinatal Support Program I decided to leave and focus on APNB’s growth and development.

A few months after leaving PSP, I began to feel a huge void in my heart. Although I enjoyed working with private clients I deeply missed my community doula work. To help fill the void I would occasionally volunteer and teach a class to PSP. Then one day while reading The Metropolitan Doula group email digest there was an inquiry about forming a community doula program in Brooklyn to help improve maternal infant mortality rates. I immediately responded to the email and shared my experience with PSP and connected the sender of the email with my former supervisor. In December 2009 By My Side was born and I along with 3 other doula colleagues started to provide doula services to low income women in Brooklyn.

My involvement with By My Side has been filled with many amazing and intense moments. When the father of one family was deported, leaving the pregnant mother alone with two other children under the age of five, I decided to reach out to one of my former clients and asked them to post on their parent list serve that I was looking for donations of gently used baby items, clothes and toys for my client’s other children. A few days later I made arrangements to pick up the items directly from the donor and learned that she was a former attorney who wanted to start a nonprofit organization to connect families to donations of essential baby and children’s items. I eventually connected the donor with By My Side’s program director and from there she gave birth to her nonprofit organization, Little Essentials. That encounter also provided an additional blessing as the donor ended up hiring my client after she had her baby to clean her house!

I have had By My Side clients decide to become doulas after they have worked with me. Mothers have been inspired to start small doula businesses, provide cooking classes, artisanal craft shops, etc. within their community. One mother is now a By My Side Doula. A family By My Side was blessed to have a second time was a mother and father working on creating their small marketing and branding business. I spent 2 hours of pushing in various positions with this couple. Pushing looked like a game of Twister; my body bending, and arms stretching. My body still remembers that birth, but I wouldn’t change that experience for the world. Two weeks after that birth my client’s small business picked up and now they are running it full time and they recently helped with By My Side’s doula campaign! My other experiences are bearing witness to families advocating for themselves, owning their birth stories and watching sometimes reluctant partners help mothers in labor.

Being a By My Side Doula hasn’t always been easy. I have encountered many difficult experiences which have made me contemplate continuing my community doula work. Thankfully, By My Side has a team of gifted, amazing, and talented doulas available whenever you need them. They have literally “doulaed” me back to life and my life purpose. Through my work with By My Side I am able to hold space for laboring clients. It is an honor and privilege for me to be allowed into such a sacred time and space. I consider myself blessed to be a part of a community doula program making such a difference improving birth outcomes one birth at a time. By My Side is truly by your side.

[Tweet “It is an honor and privilege for me to be allowed into such a sacred time and space. I consider myself blessed to be a part of a community doula program making such a difference improving birth outcomes one birth at a time.”]

“Birth must be honored and given every opportunity for the growth that is inherent in its potential.” – Raven Lang

Regina M. Conceição’s passion is rooted in the women’s studies movement – A woman’s strength is staunch, resolute, and purposeful. Her unwavering fervor for life is exuberantly demonstrated in her work guided by this women’s studies conviction. Inclusive, Regina is an avid advocate of midwifery and the integrative approach promoted by the midwifery model of care. She is the force behind A Passion for New Beginnings – learn more.

The Healthy Start Brooklyn Program (HSB) seeks to improve the health and wellness of women, infants, and their families in Central Brooklyn. Rates of infant death, premature birth, and illness in the neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville, Bushwick, East New York, and Flatbush are far higher than elsewhere in New York City and the United States. To enhance the lives of families in these neighborhoods, HSB supports services, education, and training. By My Side Doula program is a (HSB) funded project. to learn more visit: http://www.fphny.org/media/pdf/HSB-Brochure.pdf or contact 646.253.5700

Interested in becoming a doula?

Join Debra Pascali-Bonaro for an upcoming workshop or retreat.

Top 12 Reasons to Attend a Doula Workshop

I am privileged to teach, dance and connect with the circle of doulas all over the world. Being a doula is universal language – like a smile – the gentle supportive role can cross nations, cultures and languages.

Labor support, comfort, and the nurturing of mothers, fathers and partners during one of their most vulnerable and yet their most powerful life moments is an honor. I do believe that just by holding a mother’s space during labor that you are giving her an amazing gift. That said, I also believe that being a trained DONA doula gives you an amazing base of knowledge and understanding that will deepen your understanding of ways to support and honor the sacred time that is birth.[Tweet “12 Top Reasons You Should Attend a Doula Workshop!”]

Here are my top 12 reasons you should attend a doula workshop!

Discover a doula’s Her-Story, Scope of Practice and Doula Code of Ethics
Join the sisterhood: doulas practice all over the world and have a shared passion!
Learn how to enhance comfort and pleasure for your clients
Explore ways to grow your doula practice and your activism for every MotherBaby and Family
Practice hands-on techniques for each stage and phase of childbirth
Learn comfort measures with a birth ball, rebozo, peanut ball, water and more…[Tweet “Examine ways to make every birth -in every setting- a safe, sacred, gentle birth.”]
Examine ways to make every birth – in every setting – a safe, sacred, gentle birth
Refine the information you will cover during prenatal and postpartum visits
Honor The Golden hour – Newborns and breastfeeding
Improve your Communication skills
Begin process to become certified with DONA International, a well-respected, evidence based and historic doula organization
Elevate your doula business skills

And a bonus reason? Because educated doulas feel more prepared for the challenges and triumphs that childbirth will bring.

What to become a DONA International doula? I’d love to meet and teach you IN PERSON! I am constantly booking workshops all over the world. Check out my schedule to find a workshop near you!

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!

Bring More Love (to birth)

Ibu Robin Lim and Gentle Birth at Bumi Sehat Bali teach us how to Bring More Love to Birth #bringmorelove

Imagine you are a young women, living in a one-room hut with dirt floors with 20 people, barely enough food to cut you hunger pains and not enough money to travel to access prenatal care. On the night your labor begin you get a ride on the back of scooter and arrive to a maternity birth center clinic Bumi Sehat that you heard of where midwives will care for you. You are greeted with a warm hug and someone looking in your eyes to say I love you!

You enter your small cozy labor room and a tub is soon filled for you and flower petals sprinkled around you. When your baby’s head begin to emerge the midwife, her assistant, other midwives who are not busy enter and join the circle to sing the gayatri mantra, a sacred Balinese song to sing your baby into the world.

Bali Flowers in Bath — At Bumi Sehat, the birth tubs are filled with water & sprinkled with flower petals.

Your placenta is greeted into a bowl and more flowers are placed around it so you can rest in bed with your baby skin to skin, and when you are ready be a part of the sacred cutting of the cord, of if you want you can have a lotus birth.

Baby Naming Ceremony — Ibu Robin Lim often asks groups of midwives in Indonesia to together say the following three words, I love you.

This is the care Robin provides as every MotherBaby and family is greeted with love. With little resources she is rich with caring and has greatly lowered both maternal and infant mortality in Bali with her gentle midwifery knowledge, skills and love. Think of how we greet women in our hospitals today? How about women with no documented prenatal care?

Imagine if every woman in childbirth was greeted the way Ibu Robin greets every women- with gentleness, love and understanding.

It is this same type of care and love I believe we must also bring to the caregivers who don’t have the benefit of the midwifery training and knowledge you have on how to keep birth safe and low-risk. Many physicians, nurses and administrators are struggling now to find the way in our dysfunctional technocratic system. They too need your midwifery wisdom and care. We must show all caregivers that regardless of their training they can embrace a midwifery model of care. That together we can reclaim the her-story of birth with the wisdom and nurturing techniques that midwives have handed down through the ages.

Robin Lim often asks groups of midwives in Indonesia to together say three words, and I will ask you to say them, I love you.

I love you….

How do you bring more love to birth? Please share with us.

Visit Bali for the Eat Pray Doula Gentle Birth DONA Doula Workshop.

Human Rights: Infant Rights at Birth by Ibu Robin Lim

7 June, 2014

Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, families, midwives, doulas, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators and legislators… we are BirthKeepers. It is our responsibility to ask the next and the next question, for as BirthKeepers, it is we who are given the sacred responsibility to protect our incoming humans, the newborns, at birth and as they grow, for they are the future EarthKeepers. My question now is: “Are we allowing our health providers to rob our babies, of their full potential of health, intelligence, immunity and longevity, at birth?”

According to the Red Cross, children under the age of 17 (16 with parental consent in some States) are not eligible to donate blood. Blood donations are generally no more than 1 pint, which is 1/10th of the average adult blood volume. Blood donors must weigh at least 110 lbs (49,895 kg).

Yet, all over the world, in nearly every single medical institution where babies are born, Newborn infants (usually weighing only between 2 and 5 kilograms) are being denied up to 1/3 of their blood volume.

At the moment of birth newborn infants are estimated to have a blood volume of 78 ml/kg (X 3.5kg = 273 ml) with a venous hematocrit of 48%.

When the umbilical cord-clamping was delayed for 5 minutes the blood volume increased by 61% to 126 ml/kg (X 3.5 kg or 7.7 lbs. = 441 ml). This placental transfusion amounted to 168 ml for an average 3,500 g infant, one-quarter of which occurred in the first 15 seconds, and one-half within 60 seconds of birth. Baby Blood Is taking 1/3 of a mammal’s blood supply harmful? How then can it be legal, for hospital protocols and practices to harm newborns, by robbing them at birth, of so much of their blood? I have reviewed the research and the evidence, and found absolutely NO benefits for newborn babies, when their umbilical cords are immediately clamped and cut at the time of birth. In fact the studies prove this to be a harmful practice. I am quite sure that if I went removed 1/3 of even one adult patient’s blood, without his or her consent, it would be considered a crime. There would be media outcry against me, and I would be prosecuted. How then is it that people tolerate the same unfair treatment of human neonates?

A mountain of research does point to the fact that by simply delaying the clamping and cutting of babies’ umbilical cords, our newborn children would suffer less trauma, fewer inner cranial hemorrhages, have higher stores of iron at 4 months of age, and even up to 6 and 8 months after birth. , , The nutrients, oxygen and stem cells present in the blood transfused into babies by the placenta, when cord severance is delayed ensures the bodies’ tissues and organs are properly vitalized, supplied with energy, and nourished. This translates into improved health, heightened immunity, more intelligence and perhaps, potential for increased longevity.

In addition, by not severing the umbilical cord at birth, the baby must stay skin to skin with mother. This eliminates or greatly reduces the potential for birth trauma. Research has proven that babies born without trauma enjoy an intact capacity to love and trust. (Michel Odent OBGYN “The Scientification of Love.)

The simple, natural, common-sense practice of giving the placenta time to do its job, of delivering to the baby, his or her full blood supply, has been criticized and NOT implemented by the very doctors and hospitals who have taken an oath, to “Never Do Harm.”

An intervention, by definition is an action or process of intervening, or interfering, and so, the clamping and cutting of human babies’ umbilical cords is an intervention. However, in the medical literature, I have repeatedly seen the delay of umbilical cord severance called, an “intervention.”

Surgery is an intervention, in some cases a life saving one. I wonder, how not interfering with a natural, healthy process may be deemed an intervention. The imposed medical habit of immediately clamping and cutting babies’ umbilical cords has not been with us so long (just over 200 years) and yet, it is considered “normal” and “necessary.”

“Another thing very injurious to the child, is the tying and cutting of the navel string too soon; which should always be left till the child has not only repeatedly breathed but till all pulsation in the cord ceases. As otherwise the child is much weaker than it ought to be, a portion of the blood being left in the placenta, which ought to have been in the child.” Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia, 1801

The habitual practice of immediate umbilical cord clamping and cutting began in the 1960s when a hypothesis arose among physicians thinking that immediate cord severance would prevent jaundice. If this was true why do so many babies who had their cords immediately clamped and cut, need phototherapy for pathological jaundice? Research has proven that there is no greater risk of pathological jaundice for newborns whose cord clamping and cutting was delayed.

Another theory was that early cord clamping would prevent Polycythemia, or too much hemoglobin. Some research does show an increased concentration of hemoglobin in the delayed cord clamping group, but it has not harmed babies, nor is it a significant argument for immediate cord severance.

When immediate umbilical cord clamping and cutting was introduced, it was never questioned. NO research was conducted to determine if it was a safe practice. It was just done for convenience. Doctors, nurses and midwives began to follow the trend, like sheep wearing blinders. Later, they justified it with myths about delayed cord severance causing jaundice. Few asked the questions I am asking today; “What about the Baby?” “What are the Babies’ human rights?” “Is the practice and protocol of immediate umbilical severance harming our children?” “Is it sabotaging breastfeeding and bonding?” “Is it impairing our children’s birthright to their full potential of health and intelligence?” At this junction on herstory and history, many BirthKeepers are asking these very questions.

The research proves that immediate or early umbilical cord severance is detrimental to our newborn children, but no one seems alarmed? Are we hypnotized? Why are we trusting medical professionals, who profit from denying our offspring their very blood?

Thinking, caring parents and grandparents have concluded that OBGYNs and midwives, who insist on habitually severing the umbilical cords of newborn babies, immediately, are simply protecting their right to practice with impatience, and what they deem ‘efficiency,’ with no regard for the rights of the baby, who cannot protest.

Due to imagined Fear of litigation. In 1995 the American Academy of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) released an Educational Bulletin (#216) recommending immediate cord clamping in order to obtain cord blood for blood gas studies in case of a future lawsuit. They did this because deviations in blood gas values at birth can reflect asphyxia, or lack of. Lack of asphyxia at birth is viewed as proof in a court of law that a baby was healthy at birth.

Following an unpublished letter sent to ACOG by Dr. Morley, ACOG withdrew this Educational Bulletin in the February 2002 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the ACOG journal. This action released them of liability resulting from their previous bulletin #216 of 1995. Parents and all BirthKeepers must ask; WHY, if ACOG has withdrawn its erroneous instruction to doctors, to immediately clamp and cut babies’ umbilical cords, is it still universally and dangerously practiced? Midwives and doctors who propose to preserve the healthy process of placental transfusion at birth, by delaying umbilical cord clamping and cutting, are criticized and charged with the burden of proving that letting nature take her course is, safe!

At Bumi Sehat we have received nearly 7,000 babies safely into the world, in high-risk, low resource settings. ALL of them enjoyed delayed umbilical cord clamping and cutting. Normally we wait 3 hours before doing anything with the Babies’ umbilical cords, and many parents choose cord non-severance, or, “Full Lotus Birth.” My grandsons, had what is called, “Full Lotus Birth” their placentas were left intact. Full Lotus Birth is simply allowing the baby, umbilical cord and placenta to stay intact, until the cord naturally dries and falls away, with no violence. Partial Lotus Birth happens anytime we see the baby, cord and placenta trinity. This means we do not clamp or cut the babies’ umbilical cords, before the placenta has been safely born. Certainly we would never clamp and cut a baby’s cord, until all pulsation has stopped.

At Bumi Sehat we have experienced NO ill effects for the babies, even though we do not immediately sever their umbilical connection to the placenta. A small study was done which compared a small sample of 30 babies from Bumi Sehat (greatly delayed cord severance) and 30 babies from a local hospital with immediate cord severance. There was NO increased rate of Jaundice and the delayed cord severance group from Bumi Sehat enjoyed higher hemoglobin.

Our MotherBabies enjoy a breastfeeding rate of 100% upon discharge from all of our three Childbirth centers, in Indonesia and the Philippines. We attribute the success of Mother’s to breastfeed to the bright, enthusiastic way in which babies, born at our birth centers, bond wide-eyed, and go directly to the breast to self-attach and feed. Also the support of our midwifery team, for each MotherBaby, protects breastfeeding start-up. There is absolutely NO infant formula supplied or promoted at Bumi Sehat.

Babies who are compromised by newborn anemia, caused by the immediate or early clamping and cutting of their umbilical cords, are withered in comparison, and have more difficulty finding the energy required to self-attach and robustly feed at Mother’s breasts. After all, babies who suffer the routine medical habit of immediate cord severance, only seconds after birth, have been denied up to 1/3 of their divine right to their natural blood supply and stem cells, of course they have trouble breastfeeding. Sever anemia makes any and all newborn activities; gazing, crawling toward the breast, nuzzling, staying awake, latching and suckling, nearly impossible. I sing praises to the determined mothers who manage to bond and breastfeed their infants, in spite of immediate cord severance. Humans are super resilient, but that is no excuse to abuse them at birth.

No other Mammal, except humans, routinely interferes with bonding and breastfeeding by quickly severing the umbilical cords of their offspring.

No matter if you are rich or poor; educated or not; brown, black, white, red, yellow or of mixed race, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Pagan, Catholic, Jewish or Agnostic, very young or getting older, if you go to a medical institution for childbirth, your baby will be robbed of up to 1/3 or 33% of his or her natural blood supply.

Why? Stem cells are valuable, blood is valuable, some hospitals sell babies’ blood for transfusions and for research. Many parents are asked to donate their babies cord blood to science or to help others. Is this blood not meant to help the baby it belongs to? If adults may only donate up to 10% of their blood, why are doctors taking up to 33% of our babies’ blood, without consent. There are hospitals and clinics who impede the natural transfer of blood from placenta to baby, only to throw it away as medical waste. Umbilical cords are marketed for transplants. Placentas have been sold to cosmetic companies to be used in beauty supplies.

Just say “NO, I will not allow anyone to abuse my newborn by immediately clamping and cutting my Baby’s umbilical cord!”

If you were born in a hospital or clinic, it happened to you. If you plan to have your birth in nearly any medical institution on earth, it will happen to your baby, unless YOU stop it. Immediate or early clamping and cutting of babies’ umbilical cords is the biggest most widespread, medically sanctioned Human Rights issue on Earth!

Join us for Eat Pray Doula: A Gentle Birth Workshop where you will visit Bumi Sehat Clinic, connect with other BirthKeepers from around the world, and learn from Ibu Robin and Debra Pascali-Bonaro.

Ibu Robin Lim is an internationally-recognized midwife, well-known author and talented poet. She was awarded the 2011 CNN Hero of the Year Award, and was nominated for the 2016 CNN Superhero award. Her non-profit Indonesian birthing and educational clinics Bumi Sehat have saved hundreds of lives and delivered thousands of babies over the last decade, serving the poor and medically disenfranchised citizens of Bali and, far away, in the tsunami-ravaged province of Aceh, Sumatra. After years of service and frequent financial challenges, “Ibu” (Mother) Robin and her organization remain indefatigably committed to changing the world, one gentle birth at a time. Please consider supporting Ibu Robin and her clinic by donating to Bumi Sehat Foundation, or adding Bumi Sehat Foundation International Inc as your Amazon Project SMILE link. (shop from http://smile.amazon.com and Amazon will donate t the charity of your choice.)

Happy Graduation! Debra’s Advice to Budding Midwives

In May, Debra had the honor of delivering the keynote address to the New York University Midwifery Program/College of Nursing Graduation’s Blessingway. Here are some excerpts from her keynote about advice to budding midwives.

Affecting change in childbirth & “with woman”…

I am honored to be here with you today as you are entering a new phase of your life, as a midwife. Maternity Care is changing…. Changing in ways that will call upon each of you as midwives to have a crucial role in contributing to create a healthy safe, respectful, quality model of MotherBaby Maternity care in the U.S and around the world.

I have had the great privilege of traveling the world to both teach as well as learn about childbirth. To see where systems work well, where there are gaps and where there are abuses of power and money. I have learned that women’s bodies are the same and women mostly desire the same things in birth all over the world. Respectful, safe and healthy care. The best models, those with the best care and best outcomes are countries and places where there are strong autonomous midwives.

As a midwife, you are not only caring for MotherBaby’s you are touching women’s family’s, how you care for women will effect a woman’s self esteem, her ability to parent, and how she feel about herself will effect how she contributes to our community’s and society. Your care truly can change a woman’s perception of herself and her abilities.

I hope each of you will…

Allow yourself to be vulnerable enough to face your own fears and barriers to seeing birth as whole, powerful, and transformative, As like me, women will look to you to hold their fears and provide a healthy strong belief that natural birth is every woman’s birth right.

I hope you will always value the process as much as the outcomes.

That you will bring respect to MotherBaby, father, partner, family and colleagues.

That you will advocate to rebuild our broken system.

To create home birth opportunities in hospitals with rooms that offer women true choice of a full range of comfort measures.

My dream is that you will help to develop an autonomous midwifery council and model in the U.S.

And that you will greet these challenges with love. Love is healing; Love is nurturing and being born into love will transform our world.

Follow your intuition…

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself. – Alan Alda

How do you make time to connect to your intuition? To encourage each woman to tap into her own intuition as a labor and birthing women and as a mother. This is not something we can read in a book and take in; it is a daily practice that only you can define that will take you deeper into the miracle of your own heart and wisdom and to see more fully the opportunities that each birth provides for you and the women you serve. I feel that every birth holds a mirror before you that will reflect into your soul and how you allow that image to reflect with not only strengthen you as a midwife, but we as birth workers are so blessed to be on a path that holds the richness of life in every moment for us as well. The long hours, sleepless night, challenges and joys will provide you with a deep wisdom that few people truly know and a connection to life, love, and the divine if you allow yourself to connect to this deeper inner knowing we call intuition. I have attended many a birth that the midwives intuition kept birth safe, long before any machine or technology gave us signs.

Midwives are the gatekeepers of gentle, respectful beginnings and the joy of being able to honor and inspire new midwives as they begin their careers filled me with joy.

Sign-up for Debra’s weekly enews or upcoming Pain to Power online childbirth experience.

New Cesarean Rate Information from Consumer Reports

U.S waves are growing with our over-use of Cesarean Birth and the risks they pose to MotherBaby. It is great to finally hear many voices speaking out about the overuse of surgery for birth for healthy women and their babies. Consumers Report just released some helpful tools and resources in an effort to better educate women and reduce the number of unnecessary cesarean births.

The good news is this information is now readily available to pregnant women across the United States. The bad news is the findings are alarming: 66 percent of hospitals reviewed received the worst two ratings, only five (5!) hospitals received the highest rating, and hospital ratings can vary widely even in the same community.

If you are pregnant, thinking about becoming pregnant, know someone who is pregnant or work with pregnant women, these resources offer information to help decide where to give birth:

• Read the article, “What hospitals don’t want you to know about C-sections;”
• Watch the video, “Too Many C-Sections;“
• Check out C-section rates at individual hospitals; and
• Compare safety scores by hospital and by state. (Subscription required.)

Also, check out this New York Times op-ed blog post, “In Delivery Rooms, Reducing Births of Convenience,” that points to factors unrelated to the needs of mothers and babies including organization of care, payment issues, and types of providers that impact the use of cesarean section.

What’s it like to take a doula training?

Curious about what it is like to take a doula training? What types of things you will learn, what the atmosphere is like? Read a recent testimonial that was shared with us from one of Debra’s trainings

Interested in becoming a doula and want to learn more?

Community Doula Program

Interested in becoming a doula?

Join Debra Pascali-Bonaro for an upcoming workshop or retreat.

Top 12 Reasons to Attend a Doula Workshop

Healthy Women, Healthy Futures: Harlem Community Doula Program

Bring More Love (to birth)

I love you….

How do you bring more love to birth? Please share with us.

Visit Bali for the Eat Pray Doula Gentle Birth DONA Doula Workshop.

Human Rights: Infant Rights at Birth by Ibu Robin Lim

The simple, natural, common-sense practice of giving the placenta time to do its job, of delivering to the baby, his or her full blood supply, has been criticized and NOT implemented by the very doctors and hospitals who have taken an oath, to “Never Do Harm.”

No other Mammal, except humans, routinely interferes with bonding and breastfeeding by quickly severing the umbilical cords of their offspring.

Join us for Eat Pray Doula: A Gentle Birth Workshop where you will visit Bumi Sehat Clinic, connect with other BirthKeepers from around the world, and learn from Ibu Robin and Debra Pascali-Bonaro.

Happy Graduation! Debra’s Advice to Budding Midwives

Sign-up for Debra’s weekly enews or upcoming Pain to Power online childbirth experience.

New Cesarean Rate Information from Consumer Reports

Want to learn more? Sign up for Debra’s weekly enews for the latest.

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Do Something

Curious about what it is like to take a doula training? What types of things you will learn, what the atmosphere is like? Read a recent testimonial that was shared with us from one of Debra’s trainings

Interested in becoming a doula and want to learn more?

Interested in becoming a doula?

Join Debra Pascali-Bonaro for an upcoming workshop or retreat.

I love you….

How do you bring more love to birth? Please share with us.

Visit Bali for the Eat Pray Doula Gentle Birth DONA Doula Workshop.

The simple, natural, common-sense practice of giving the placenta time to do its job, of delivering to the baby, his or her full blood supply, has been criticized and NOT implemented by the very doctors and hospitals who have taken an oath, to “Never Do Harm.”

No other Mammal, except humans, routinely interferes with bonding and breastfeeding by quickly severing the umbilical cords of their offspring.

Join us for Eat Pray Doula: A Gentle Birth Workshop where you will visit Bumi Sehat Clinic, connect with other BirthKeepers from around the world, and learn from Ibu Robin and Debra Pascali-Bonaro.

Sign-up for Debra’s weekly enews or upcoming Pain to Power online childbirth experience.

Want to learn more? Sign up for Debra’s weekly enews for the latest.

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