Blood to Milk Midwifery

It’s rainbow baby day 2024!🌈
Let’s celebrate and show off all of those sweet rainbow babies that light up our lives!🌈 Post a 🌈 or a pic of your rainbow!

We have been keeping the most precious secret! Our daughter Lana Rose Culver was born on 5/8/24. It was a peaceful pregnancy and we are so excited to have her in our arms now. 5lbs 13oz 18.5in 🌹💕

Happy Earth 🌎 Day!
So many people are unsure of what to do with their placenta. For those that don’t want to just toss it in the trash or encapsulate, planting your placenta in the earth with a tree or potting it with flowers or a plant can be a great way to honor the transition from pregnancy to postpartum and celebrate new life! 🌳🪻🌷🌏What did you do with your placenta?

Happy World Doula Week to all the amazing doulas out there doing the hard work for expecting and postpartum families! 🤰🏽🎾💆🏼‍♀️🪭🫖👶🏾🌎

If you had a doula what one thing did she do that made a huge impact on your birth or postpartum? If you are a doula what is your favorite thing about serving families?

Too good not to share! 🤣🤣

☀️☀️☀️☀️

Tell me something you did this past year that you are so proud of? I chose some tough new beginnings and leaving my comfort zone and that is never easy. Still adjusting but it was so worth it!
Whatever you accomplished, no matter how big or small, be proud of yourself! You are amazing!

Happy New Years Eve! Have fun tonight! 😉

🎶Smooth like buttah🎵

❤️🩺🤰🏼👶🤱🏾

Praying for our neighbors and community of Clarksville today. ❤️

Mothers need so much more in the postpartum and that does not mean holding the baby!

Oop!

If you work in a hospital as a midwife or obstetrician, you may be expected to ‘get the baby out’ within 60 seconds of the birth of the head. There can be an expectation that the baby be born within the space of one contraction.

I have personally been mentored by private midwives and have only watched physiological births at home to learn how to sit with birth, so for a long time I assumed that everyone just waited for the second contraction for the shoulders to be born… turns out, many midwives and obstetricians will put their hands on the babies head to try and put traction/pressure on the babies head to bring the shoulders out within the same contraction.

One of the concerns is that if the shoulders aren’t born soon after the head, that they must be stuck and that the baby is experiencing a shoulder dystocia…but that can’t be true, because most of the births I attend follow a two-step method where we just wait for the second contraction for the shoulders and all those babies didn’t have a shoulder dystocia

There is research on this (of course) and Zhang et al in 2017 did a randomised controlled clinical trial to compare a one-step method with a two-step method.

The control group had the one-step method where the clinician used their hands to speed up the birth of the shoulders, the study group had a two-step approach where the clinician just allowed the baby to be born over 2 contractions

The two-step group had ZERO incidence of shoulder dystocia and no increase in neonatal asphyxia compared to the one-step group. The one step group had 4 shoulder dystocia incidents.

The two-step approach allows physiological birth to unfold, acknowledges the cardinal movements of the baby through the pelvis and allows the time for the shoulders to get into position before they are born to allow for a less complicated birth.

By speeding up and trying to manually manipulate the baby out if it’s mother we interrupt the babies manoeuvres through the pelvis and potentially create incidences of shoulder dystocia.

That contraction though!!😍

Tell me your or !
My favorite is that VBAMC is and can be very safe at home. Women who have had 1, 2, 3+ cesareans can go on to have a safe vaginal birth, even a home birth for many. What’s your outside of the norm opinion on birth?

If you didn’t know!

We made it to our new home today in 🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁Clarksville, Tennessee!!!!! We are exhausted and sick of the car but excited to unpack tomorrow and start making memories in this next chapter. Looking forward to what Tennessee holds for us personally and professionally!

Exciting news as promised! 🎉 My family and midwifery practice are making big moves… literally!!!! Keep watching and following to see where we are making our new home! 🏡🚚📦 ✌🏼