With our usual work complete, and no plans for the weekend, my husband, Ravi, and I slept in on Saturday morning, October 8th, not knowing it would be our last opportunity for such a wonderful luxury. That afternoon after a walk in town, a few minutes into lunch I said to Ravi, “I think we
You’ve heard “breast is best”and maybe your doctor or friends have encouraged breastfeeding, too. Maybe you also have friends who have told you how hard it can be. Yes, it is recommended by many health organizations and yes, it can be hard! Breastfeeding is a learning curve, steeper for some moms and babies than others.
I was thirty nine weeks and four days pregnant when I woke up at 11pm with regular enough contractions to start timing them. A half hour later I woke up my husband, Ravi, and said, “Um…soooo…I think I’m in labor.” I felt bad waking him since I knew he had only gone to bed a
There are endless decisions to make when preparing for a birth, and it seems there are pros and cons on both sides of everything. Cord clamping, however, is rarely discussed, and generally done without consulting the parents. Since 1913 it has been common practice in Western medicine to immediately clamp the cord after birth, known
By Meg Heather Ford At the start of the 20th century as birth moved away from the home and care of midwives and into the hospital and realm of the trained obstetrician, a (perhaps unintended?) consequence was the routine separation of mother and baby immediately after delivery. Increasingly, science is confirming what standard midwifery care
I remember years ago—long before our daughter was even a thought in our mind—Crys mentioning she wanted, someday, to do a water birth (which, from all the things I had seen on Baby Story and all those TLC and Discovery shows, also meant birthing at home). My initial thought, back then, was one of, “Damn
By Shasta Colmenares This beautifully designed and life-giving home for a growing baby is as perfect and individual as a fingerprint. The first time I saw a placenta in person was attending my first delivery in 2009. It was about 20 minutes after the water birth of a beautiful baby girl, that it was ‘ready’
by Elon Bartlett, D.C. As a prenatal chiropractor, my professional, and personal, experiences validate my belief that our bodies know how to birth babies, and that fewer interventions lead to safer births. I was born at home in San Francisco in 1970. My mother had had a previous birth in a hospital and let’s just
There are many modern names for a doula, (pronounced ‘doo-la’,) including labor coach, birth assistant, and birth attendant. The roots of the word itself stems from a Greek word meaning “woman servant or caregiver.” Doulas are trained to provide emotional, physical and educational support for the mother during all parts of the birth, and are considered by many to