Stephanie Spani Birth Doula

Would you? 🧸

Afterbirth & Crafts: Make a Placenta Teddy Bear in Three Easy Steps! - The Mom Beat Instead of Build-a-Bear, you Birth-a-Bear! More

Don’t forget that Birth Without Fear is coming to Victoria in July! Today they have a coupon code for 20% off tickets (TODAY ONLY!!). BWF will not be traveling next year, so this might be the last chance to see them. I am so excited for this!

Register here: bwfconference.com

promo code: FOMO20

Birth Without Fear® Conference Join us at one of the many Birth Without Fear Conference events in 2018

Early morning affirmations 💕

There are still some tickets left to this awesome event!

HI! Can you like or comment on this if you see it...otherwise probably not one even person in Canada will see it. 😆 You know we said we’d pick a city based on YOUR VOTES? 🎉 Victoria, BC it is! 🇨🇦 Tickets open tomorrow (as promised) at 9am. Only 50 available so tag friends, share, and be ready! 👉🏽bwfconference.com

It's World Doula Week, and I want to thank you for inviting me to a part of your journey! 📷by Coastal Lifestyles Photography

Love this!

❤️

Good to know!

This could be so useful! I know it’s something I would’ve used a few years ago!

Please spread the news!

What an honour it is to welcome a sweet babe Earthside! This little love is baby sister to my first ever doula babe. How special is that?!

Here's a little highlight from CHEK News: Official Page of today's advocacy event!
https://www.cheknews.ca/b-c-midwives-request-more-funding-to-expand-to-remote-communities-like-tofino-port-hardy-508652/

B.C. midwives request more funding to expand to remote communities like Tofino, Port Hardy As the Midwives Association of B.C. prepares to head into contract negotiations with the province in January 2019, they are calling for more funding to expand their services to remote communities including Tofino, Port Hardy, and Port McNeill.

This was a wonderful morning of support and advocacy for our midwives!

“As primary care providers, registered midwives play an integral role in our maternity care system and have made significant improvements to the quality and accessibility of pregnancy and birth services in recent years. Greater investment means midwives can continue to enable British Columbians to birth their babies closer to home with a high level of personalized care, client satisfaction and positive health outcomes.”

https://www.bcmidwives.com/cgi/page.cgi/_zine.html/News_Announcements/B.C._s_Midwives_Call_on_Province_for_Greater_Support_and_Investment_in_Midwifery_Care

B.C.’s Midwives Call on Province for Greater Support and Investment in Midwifery Care - Midwives Association of British Columbia Victoria, B.C. – The Midwives Association of British Columbia (MABC) today was at the B.C. Legislature, calling on the provincial government to increase funding and investment in midwifery services to increase access to maternity care and support better health outcomes for newborns and parents thr...

Would you wear it?
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/shortcuts/2018/oct/15/fendi-750-pound-vulva-scarf-makes-wearers-look-like-theyre-being-born?CMP=fb_gu

Fendi’s £750 ‘vulva’ scarf makes wearers look like they’re being born Twitter users were quick to point out the peachy-pink, fur-trimmed scarf’s resemblance to female ge****ls

Love this visual!

Pretty much my favourite labour day ever

We're homebirthing. 😊😊

What worked for you? What was your favourite? We’re there any positions you weren’t into?

Happy Monday! Let’s talk about...LABOR! 🤰🏽Check out these labor positions below👇🏾
1. STANDING SUPPORTED SQUAT
Pros: Realigns your pelvis to increase the opening by up to 15 percent.

2. SEMI-SITTING
Pros: Comfortable.
Good use of gravity.
Good resting position.

3. SITTING
Pros: Good for resting.
Uses gravity.
Can be used with continuous electronic fetal monitoring.

4. SITTING ON TOILET

Pros: Helps relax perineum.
You get used to an open-leg position and pelvic pressure.
Uses gravity.

5. SQUATTING
Pros: Encourages rapid descent.
Uses gravity.

6. SIDE-LYING
Pros: Helps get oxygen to the baby.
Good resting position.
Helpful if you have elevated blood pressure.
Fine with epidural.

7. WALKING
Pros: Uses gravity.
Contractions are often less painful.
Baby is well aligned in your pelvis.

8. STANDING
Pros: Uses gravity.
Helps get oxygen to the baby.

9. LEANING OR KNEELING FORWARD WITH SUPPORT
Pros: Can help shift the baby if needed.
Uses gravity.
Birth ball can be used.

10. KNEE-CHEST
Pros: Good for back labor.
Assists with rotation of baby, if needed.

11. ON BACK WITH LEGS RAISED

art work by

This is a great info graphic! My loser b**b is definitely my left. Do you have one?

A fabulous graphic about breastfeeding your 1-6month old. Pretty much everyone has what I call a 'loser b**b' -- hands up if yours is also your left?! :P

So beautiful and heartbreaking

This story has been moving millions around the world. is every . Day 10. The female orcas are now taking turns helping the Mama Orca carry her dead baby across the sea... so the grieving Mama Orca can eat and rest. This is grief. This is love. This is true, compassionate grief support. THIS. THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE DONE. Sadly this is not usually the kind of grief support the brokenhearted receive in our grief illiterate culture.

This is such a heartbreakingly beautiful visual of love and support. The orcas are showing us how it should be done. Step in. Show up. Lead with your heart. Feel your friend’s broken heart. Let it break you open. Carry each other’s burdens. Grief shared is grief divided. Your friend or family member needs you— more than you know. Literally step in, show up, and help carry the weight of grief. It’s too heavy for one person to carry alone.

The female Orcas are literally carrying this mama’s 400 pound dead baby across the ocean WITH her and FOR her. I have never before seen such a beautiful display of solidarity. Of community. Of compassion. Of love. This is how we need to support our grieving, heartbroken friends.

My wish is that every grieving person in the world would feel THIS supported, loved, held— carried. It pains me to know this kind of support is not the norm for most grieving people. We need to do better. We can do better. We MUST do better.

Grieving people LONG for this kind of grief support. Some never find it. Every aching heart deserves it and more. Grieving people spend most of their time and energy DEFENDING their right to grieve. Defending their right to ache, their right to love, and continue loving. Do you know how backwards that is?

We need to show the same compassion for humans grieving the loss of their precious loved ones— instead of rushing them to move on, get over it, stuff their sorrow— while we stuff endless cliches down their throats and wonder why no one is feeling “better” yet. We need to stop putting timelines on grief. We need to understand that deep grief is deep love. We need to acknowledge and validate one another’s pain. This is how we should be tending to broken hearts. With love. With empathy. With compassion. We need to let our hearts break, too. And then respond in love. Compassion. Solidarity. We need to lift each other up. Not leave people to carry the burden alone.

Humans, take note. The orcas know how to support a grieving heart. Someday we hope compassionate grief support will become the norm. This is why A Bed For My Heart exists. Until then we will continue to use our voices to tell the world what healthy grieving looks like, feels like— is.

Hint: it looks a lot like love.

© Angela Miller 2018

FULL ARTICLE: www.abedformyheart.com/I-will-carry-you/
—
It takes a village. Join ours. A Bed For My Heart Studio ABedForMyHeart.com
::: a place to rest your grieving heart :::

Get the #1 Best-Selling book, “You Are the Mother of All Mothers.” A gorgeous giftbook for grieving . ABedForMyHeart.com/buy/

TODAY Parents Delilah

Gorgeous watercolor art: “See Me” © Lori Christopher

This! please complain at me if your ni***es hurt while breastfeeding! Please don’t brush it off! Please reach out and we will work all the avenues to make breastfeeding more comfortable!

I would be interested to know whether you experienced sore ni***es during breastfeeding. Women are often told, wrongly, that it is normal for breastfeeding to hurt and that sore ni***es will get better without treatment, because ni***es will "toughen up". Or that mothers just have to wait because the pain "goes away after the first three weeks". Women sometimes tell horror stories of their ni***es having "craters" or "looking like hamburger meat" and yet, there was no one who would help them. If this were any other medical situation, doctors would think it is imperative that the person get real help. With breastfeeding, sore ni***es get just ignored or brushed aside as "normal". As if pain was supposed to be an accepted part of breastfeeding. As if nothing could be done.
My new eBook has 316 pages and discusses issues such as sore ni***es but also many other situations which often, and not surprisingly, lead to women´s giving up on breastfeeding. My new eBook offers solutions that can help women make breastfeeding work.

🤯

Haha!

Traci Weafer, Maternal Instincts Doula got jokes, y’all. Check her Instagram out for her funny pregnancy memes.

This is wonderful! I breastfed my first until she was 2 and a half. My second is weaning now. How long did you breastfeed your little one, if you decided to?

A few things I forgot between babies four and five: Dads, when your has been fed, changed, and is still upset, swaddle them up and hold them. Check in with them. Feel their face on yours. Talk to them. Rub their back, sway gently, hum, make the “swishy” sound in their ear to replicate the sound of Mom’s heartbeat in utero. If they’re still crying and it breaks your heart... that’s fatherhood. If you move past heartbreak into exasperation... that’s fatherhood. If they start screaming and you find yourself wanting to say “Oh, C’MON!” out loud... that’s fatherhood. If you feel helpless and inadequate and like you’re staring at a final exam full of questions you couldn’t possibly have known to study for... that’s fatherhood. And if you push through that... become more present than you’ve ever been, discover instincts you never knew you had, and summon up more love and patience than you’ve maybe ever shown anybody... and they either take it, or get tired, or finally work out that fart that was bothering them and fall asleep on your chest... and you suddenly feel like you beat the system, got nominated for a Nobel Prize and got told “I love you” by the first girl you ever loved... THAT’s fatherhood. Welcome... Glad you’re here. 💙

100%

Let me tell you, when this gets switched on, my heart skips a beat every time 💕

It's been stinkin' hot out there, this is some good info to remember!

Feeding water to a baby can kill Paediatricians have warned parents about the dangers of feeding water to babies who are under the age of six months, as this can prove extremely detrimental to their health. Babies do not need water in the same way that children and adults do, even on a hot summer’s day. According to a study publi...

Nothing quite like a post birth shower and recovery snooze. Whether in mother-babe, or your own home. Feeling so thankful to be invited to your birthing days! What’s your post birth favourite?