During this conversation, Karen McClay, Midwife & Director of Calmbirth chats with Lael Stone & Marion Rose from Aware Parenting about raising children with awareness and connection.
Story by Claire Heenan, Media & Communications at Homebirth NSW & a Sydney-based birth and postpartum doula Choosing where to give birth and whom you’d like on your birth team is a significantly loaded decision in terms of how you are going to feel about your pregnancy, birth and postpartum experience. Sometimes making a decision as important as this calls for starting with the vision in mind and asking yourself about the hopes and dreams you have for your birth. How do you visualise the birth of your baby? Are you hoping to avoid unnecessary intervention? Do you trust birth as a physiological journey? Of course, the evidence is important too, and as a doula and member of the Homebirth NSW committee, I am a big believer in marrying good quality evidence with a woman’s own intuitive knowing as to what will be best for her and her baby.”Babies being born where they are made. Midwives being ‘with woman’ in every sense. The woman, a warrior at the centre of her birth experience, handing her power to no one. Skin to skin in a woman’s own comfy bed, no rush or fuss. A baby, born into a warm, loving and familiar place; Home”, says Claire Heenan.
“Calmbirth is so thrilled to announce our collaboration with Homebirth NSW and be able to promote more informed choices for women and their partners who are wanting and seeking a homebirth. Calmbirth is all about normalising birth and changing our birth culture for future generations, so that they can experience birth positively and as a natural part of life whilst giving them choices in how and where they wish to birth their babies”, says Midwife, Director & Owner of Calmbirth,
“As a professional working in the field of perinatal and parental mental health and parenting, I, in no way thought that I was above the mama experiences of unmet expectations or the all mighty ‘mother guilt’…I just thought since I knew the risk factors of perinatal mental health difficulty, I know the approaches that are helpful, I teach the skills and have experienced the journey with so many beautiful and inspirational mamas…. I thought, surely I would have this sorted!!!!!!! wow!!!!!!! was I in for surprise. TGhe intensity of the feelings bought on by these little beings is something I could have never prepared myself for. The rawness of the emotions felt as a mama caught me of guard like a blast of cold wind. the endless unconditional love, the mama bear like protectiveness, the self doubt, the sleep deprivation, the hormones, the relationship adjustments and the self and role adjustments have been and continue to be the most challenging, rewarding journey of my life”.
During this conversation, Karen McClay, Midwife & Director of Calmbirth chats with Melinda Webb from The Birthing Webb (https://www.melindawebb.com.au). Melinda is a Dr of Chinese Medicine, a Doula and a Calmbirth educator. Here they talk about Doulas’ and how they support couples and families during labour & birth.