Bakersfield Birth Center

It’s simple really, this must be the best job ever❤️

Bakersfield Birth Center where we love birth & listen to women❤️

Happy International Day of the Midwife, to all my amazing midwife sisters❤️I am so grateful for each and every one of you! Including my precious student . So proud of you Brianna, and so grateful you have devoted this time in your life to learning why midwives matter, what midwives do, and that women are SO WORTH FIGHTING FOR! As a woman I am beyond grateful for midwives and the way midwives care for women! 💛I wouldn’t have wanted to be cared for by anyone else! Hoping my daughters all have midwives when it’s their turn to carry & deliver. As women we need what midwives stand for. We need our health care providers behind us, listening to us, loving us as we carry & birth. And ultimately fighting for us! Fighting for our sovereignty over our bodies, our births and our babies!

Long and hard, but she did it anyway. The journey a woman takes to bring her baby from her insides to earth side is profound and beautiful every time. ❤️

Literally the everyday miracle

A day to celebrate! A day filled with so much love, joy and the beauty of humanity ❤️💛❤️

And this is why🤍

Pregnancy & birth are a normal part of life. Sometimes requiring skilled assistance. A corner stone of midwifery philosophy is that relationship between the pregnant mother and her midwife are important. That mutual respect & trust leads to best outcomes and positive birth experiences. We support women to be able to give birth to their babies in a safe & satisfying way. Women can and should be supported to birth their babies in the location that feels safe to them. We support education of women, their families and children about birth as a special & physiological process that belongs to mothers!❤️

Home SWEET Home BIRTH💫

A diagnosis of CPD (cephalopelvic disproportion) doesn’t always reflect actual CPD. Or a diagnosis of failure to descend, or FTP (failure to progress). We do not KNOW everything! It often happens that a labor is labeled CPD, FTD, FTP but it’s really an unknown reason for lack of progress in labor. Approximately 60% of women w/a previous C/S for CPD will go on to birth vaginally and often birth larger babies than the baby they were diagnosed w/cephalo-pelvic disproportion! As a midwife I want to encourage women to know your voice matters! Your dreams and goals matter. If you want to try we as the medical people caring for pregnant and laboring women need to support your wishes! Yes we have to monitor closely, yes there are certain instances where time matters like once a woman becomes active that apply when a uterus has been cut before. And yes we have to be honest that we don’t KNOW all and that we can’t guarantee a vaginal birth. But we can guarantee support and a true trial. VBAC can and should be supported! Today I celebrate this knowledgeable, brave woman that followed her inner voice! ❤️

I✨N✨C✨R✨E✨D✨I✨B✨L✨E 💛🩷💛🩷💛🩷💛🩷💛🩷💛🩷💛 This is why! Women can birth, without excessive bleeding, without the need for neonatal resuscitation without complications. ✨🙌🏽✨

What an honor getting to work with this incredible woman and her wonderful family! As a midwife there is nothing sweeter!

The Latest Data on maternal & newborn outcomes following waterbirth: a cohort study of 17,530 water births & 17530 propensity score matched land births. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34773367/
1.) Hemorrhaging 2.38 % water vs 2.99%land

2.) Less Postpartum Transfer to hospital
2.05 % water vs 2.5% land

3.) Newborn Transfers
1.39 % water vs 1.65% land

3.) Less Severe Vaginal lacerations 3rd & 4th degree- 0.75% water vs 0.84% land

4.) Newborn Respiratory Distress Syndrome
1.49 % water vs 1.61 % land

5.) Neonatal Hospital Admission
3.39 water vs 3.58 land

6.) Death 0.28 (water) vs 0.51 per 1,000 on land

Important to know Water Birth is associated w/an increase in the following risks-

1.) Risks Umbilical cord avulsion
0.57 .% (water) vs 0.37 % on land

2.)Postpartum intrauterine infection
0.31% water vs 0.25% land

Home birth is so special! All of my own sweet babies were born in our home & their births have all been to put it simply. So special! Bri my student midwife, Meliza a wise, loving & experienced doula and myself were blessed with the opportunity to support a brilliant first time momma with her home birth one week ago. It is with her permission that I get to share a few of the images from her birth. She sent them along with these words… “You’re welcome! Thank you! I’m so happy with my birth experience. Thank you for everything. You’re such a blessing and I’m very grateful for you!” 💓🏡💓
A few of the “documented benefits of home birth”… Lower rates of maternal morbidity such as postpartum hemorrhage, perineal lacerations & lower rates of the following medical interventions. Episiotomy, instrumental vaginal birth, and cesarean section. As you can read by both her testimony and mine that women who birth at home have high rates of satisfaction.

Affective frequent breast stimulation in the first few weeks is protective of breastfeeding. You’ve got this mama! For local birth options with an IBCLC check out Bakersfield Birth Center. If your high risk and birth center midwifery care is not an option for you. I’d recommend hiring a doula & contacting Baby Cafe Bakersfield if you need more breastfeeding help once your home. With birth center midwifery care the Lactation Consultant automatically comes to your home for three appointments in the first two weeks postpartum.

Bakersfield Birth Center donates monthly to MamaBaby Haiti. Please join us in helping to save lives! ❤️ Haiti has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. Please help support a safe place for mothers and their newborns. In gratitude, Justine and the Bakersfield Birth Center Team❤️

Hi, it’s Jennifer from MamaBaby, Co-Founder, midwife, mother, and advocate.⁠ I want to first thank you for all the ways you’ve supported us. I see and appreciate you immensely.⁠
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The reality is, we’re behind on our goal of reaching 50 more women a month with complete prenatal, birth, and postpartum care at our birth centers in Haiti.⁠
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We have a beautiful new facility (the space to reach more women and infants in need of care). When our team misses our goal, it means we don’t have the funds to reach those who need us in our Haitian community.⁠
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That means more women will birth at home without a skilled attendant, risking their lives and the lives of their infants.⁠
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It gives me great peace to see the outpouring of generosity from our supporters. You are the fiercest of allies with the biggest hearts for mothers and babies.⁠
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And so I ask for your support today. If you’re able to, would you begin giving monthly? Even $10 a month brings us closer to our goal of reaching 50 more women each month with complete prenatal, birth, and postpartum care.⁠
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I know we’ve asked before, and I want to offer this opportunity to you to create big change and save lives by donating monthly.⁠
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Thank you for your grace, kindness, and understanding. I appreciate you so very much.⁠ To give, click here: https://donorcare.net/Donation/MamaBabyHaiti
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Warmly,⁠
Jennifer Gallardo

The grand prehistoric pelvises. I took my littlest two babies to the natural history museum. Did you know that some dinosaurs birth live young? Each pelvis is like a snowflake. Every woman’s is different ❄️

Please check out The Business of Birth Control! Two of my daughters & I just watched. I was in tears & mad as ever💔😡
To access this documentary before 2/6/22 go visit the link in
‘s bio.

It was a very FULL week✨🤍✨we had 7 laboring women and babies everyday of the week a couple weeks ago. I am finally recovered enough to post!🤦🏻‍♀️What I will say is I’ve been a midwife for a long while now (yes over 20 years😂) It is SO precious to me that I can still be SO moved by what women GO THROUGH! ALL the time to give birth & bring their babies here! All I can say is simply W✨O✨W❕ 🤍 @ Bakersfield Ice center

Birth can be so beautiful! Congratulations momma & papa 💛

There are no words ✨❤️✨

A gorgeous VBAC this morning at the birth center✨💦✨

Nothing is sweeter than helping a family I’ve worked with before❤️

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/evidence-based-birth/id1334808138?i=1000520241428

I absolutely love the AMAZING resource Rebecca Decker and her team at Evidenced Based Birth have created for expecting families!
They have a podcast on just about everything you may have a question about!

‎Evidence Based Birth®: EBB 175 - Evidence on Midwives on Apple Podcasts ‎Show Evidence Based Birth®, Ep EBB 175 - Evidence on Midwives - May 5, 2021

This INCREDIBLE VBA3C happened this morning at the birth center!! They told her she was broken over & over again...she believed differently‼️Yay✨❤️✨‼️