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Story Time
Birthing Stories - Coming Soon
Barbara's Articles
Choosing a Knowledgeable
Health Care Provider
Making Informed Childbirth
Choices
Overcoming Childbirth
Fears
C-Sections in the News
ICAN - Report on the 2007 Conference...sort of
New
Interviews
Karen
Brody,
Birth playwrite and founder of BOLD.
Penny Simkin,
founder of modern doula movement.
Lynn
Paltrow, Visionary and Executive Director of National Advocates
for Pregnant Women.
New
Stay tuned for more!
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Information
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What's more exciting, scary, and life changing than having a baby?
Especially for moms giving birth for the first time, it's hard to know who
to listen to. It's hard to know what to expect - despite the book by
the similar title.
On the other hand, maybe you've been through it before and want your next
birth experience to be different? Maybe you felt listened to and
respected, but maybe you felt betrayed by the care you received? Maybe
you felt exhilarated by the experience, or maybe you felt traumatized?
Maybe you wanted to nurse, but found the first couple of days so challenging
that you stopped?
As Penny Simkin, doula
and founder of DONA, Doulas of North America, says, giving birth is not
"just another day in a woman's life." If you've recently had a baby
you can undoubtedly remember every detail. And if you haven't yet
given birth, it's quite likely that 20 years from now, you will still be
able to vividly recount the experience.
Giving birth is not
just about pushing a baby out - or having it surgically removed. It affects
our deepest selves, alters our perceptions of who we are, rocks us to our
core. Yet for many women, including the majority of women in the
United States (and in many other western countries) our births take place in
a culture that promotes birth as scary and dangerous. We are taught
not to trust our bodies and the natural process of birth. And our
births, more often than not, are subjected to interventions that fly in the
face of scientific evidence.
Why talk about
childbirth on a breastfeeding site? The answer is simple. If we
want to breastfeed happily and successfully, we first have to start with
birth. We are taught that they are unrelated events, but in reality,
they are part of a continuum. And what happens during birth can have a
huge impact on our ability - and our babies' abilities - to nurse.
Besides, all women
deserve to look back at their birth experience with pride and without
regret. All women deserve respectful care. And all women deserve
care that will "do no harm."
The Breastfeeding
Cafe's Birthing Suite is - I hope - a place that will help you explore your
options, think about birth in a new way, and empower you to have the kind of
birth you want.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ICAN (International Cesarean Awareness Network) Silver Anniversary
Conference.
Dr.
Mark Landon, primary author of the first large-scale American prospective
study on VBAC, is among seven keynote speakers, April 20-22, in Syracuse,
NY, at 25 Years of Discovering ICAN. Joining him are Henci Goer,
Sharon Storton, Dr. Marsden Wagner, Nancy Wainer, Diane Wiessinger, Esther
Booth Zorn, and others.
Click
here for info.
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