The Golden Hour – The ‘Midas Touch of skin to skin

Welcoming a newborn into the world is a profoundly emotional and transformative experience. As parents, our instinctive desire to protect, nurture, and connect with our little bundle of joy knows no bounds. One of the most beautiful ways to build an unbreakable bond with your newborn is through the magic of touch – skin-to-skin contact. Beyond the warmth and tenderness it provides, skin-to-skin after birth offers a plethora of remarkable benefits for both baby and parent.

How to plan for your birth…

In life, we plan for most milestone events such as birthdays, holidays, marathons, weddings, and funerals so birth should be no different. In fact, planning for your birth is a game changer because your birth experience is one that you will remember forever and the way you feel about your birth matters. The more prepared you are with your birth preferences the better birth outcomes you will have both physically and emotionally.

So why not start by asking yourself these simple questions:

The Calmbirth Conversation Podcast Episode 18. Creating an optimal microbiome during Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond.

Welcome to another episode of the Calmbirth Conversation Podcast. In this episode 18 our Calmbirth Director Karen McClay talks with Emma Park. Emma is a Functional Nutritionist Clinician and Clinical Educator and is an industry leader in the field of gut health and the microbiome in the First 1000 Days of life.

Karen and Emma discuss the importance of the microbiome for pregnant mamas and people, and their babies, and how we can maintain and create an optimal environment for a healthy microbiome during pregnancy birth and postpartum. This is particularly important for those whose microbiome is already out of kilter e.g., they have a history of vaginitis, candida infections (thrush), recurrent UTI’s, GBS and mastitis.  Karen and Emma also discuss the impact that antibiotic use during pregnancy and birth, and caesarean births have on the microbiome and what these mamas and birthing people can do to help their and their baby’s microbiome recover.

If you would like more information on this you can have a look at Emma’s “The First 1000 days” course, or download her booklet, both of which can be found here: https://www.thefirst1000days.com.au/

And because stress is one of the biggest influences on a healthy microbiome, come and join us for a Calmbirth course because we are all about helping you to change your relationship to stress through knowledge and tools that will not only help during your pregnancy and birth but will continue to be an asset for the rest of your life. You can find a Calmbirth Educator near you here: https://calmbirth.com.au/

If you enjoyed this podcast episode please share with your friends, and tag us on our socials @calmbirth.

Breaking News – Calmbirth antenatal program is coming to St George Hospital in June…

Lorena Matthews, Divisional Director Women’s & Children’s Health at St George Hospital says,  “I am very excited to announce St George Hospital will be partnering with Calmbirth to provide childbirth education classes.
“The classes will be facilitated from a trained Calmbirth practitioner and available for pregnant women wanting to feel more empowered and enabled during their labour and birth,” 

How do you say hello and then goodbye – Leo’s brave lion heart

October 15th is International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Day and during the month of October we try to raise awareness of this significant and life changing event by encouraging families to share their stories of grief and healing so they may give comfort to other families that may be going through the same or similar journey.

Tonight on this day, Jessaveve Hunter is finally ready to share her birth story.

My husband & I found the Calmbirth course extremely useful for our first birth. But for the birth of our second son, we faced a very different, a very difficult situation. Our son was diagnosed in untero with a genetic condition affecting his heart & other organs. It was terminal. He wasn’t going to live after birth. We were prepared that we might have just minutes to cherish him. With much counselling we decided, in every way we could, we would lean in. Lean in to the grief, to the supports available, lean in to cherishing our pregnancy, whilst he was still with us, lean in to the funeral prep (though it broke my heart), AND at the same time we leaned in to giving our beautiful son, the best birth. So we revised our Calmbirth book & we did all the ground work for a calm, special and truely cherished birth. It didn’t go exactly to plan but it was so beautiful. I was able to gift my son, a good birth. And because it was so good, we (and our family) were able to cherish the 1 hour we were given with our sweet boy.  Here is my beautiful and precious birth.