Doula Jinny

After having a child, I realized that in the eyes of society mothers can't: - Complain (who told you to have kids?) - Cry (why are you crying? Did you think it ...was easy?) - Getting tired of what? (you do nothing!) - Sleep (You're lazy!) - Rest (you'll have plenty of time for that after they grow up) - Getting pregnant again (are you crazy? How many more kids do you want?) - Quitting work (how will you support your child?) - Work (who will take care of the child?) - Leave them at the nursery (Don’t let others raise them!!) - Being a housewife (Poor husband, works too hard and his wife stays at home!!) - Being single (nobody wants a woman with kids) - Going out for fun (why are you leaving your son with grandma to have fun?) And you know whats worse??? 90% of these phrases are spoken by other women. Let's learn to be more supportive of each other. I'm human and I love my kids but I'm guilty of all these emotions at some point

It’s 2 am, this is my third night with little to no sleep, but I am up and standing at the door of The Birth Home, waiting on the next mama in labor to arrive -...powerful and hopeful, planning a VBAC. ... She arrives by taxi, papa carrying the bags. She is contracting 2 min apart. She is praying out loud during each contraction. We listen and hear a strong baby with a baseline of 140. She asks for her cervix to be checked. She is 6 cm with a big bulging bag. It wouldn’t take long at this rate. My student and I call in the rest of the team and ready the room and supplies while supporting her with smiles and encouragement. ... Birth is so amazing every time, but I’m particularly fond of supporting vaginal births after cesareans. There’s something about the dedication, the redemption, and the triumph that just makes me fall in love with them. It’s like watching a literal Pheonix rise from ashes. ... She paces and moans and eventually moves to the dark bathroom. Time stands still, she contracts and squeezes her husband and then rests between. She asks if it’s normal to scream. It is, we say. Do whatever your body asks, we say. ... Our bodies can be such fearless leaders of this process if we just let them. We must give birth IN our bodies not in our heads cause there’s no hole big enough to birth out your head. ... She announces she’s pushing. We encourage her to touch her baby’s head and this reaction makes me tear up every time. Oh MY god. There’s a baby coming out. Yes. Yes there is. You’re doing it. ... Her son is born a few contractions later on hands and knees. My students first catch. We pass him through her legs together. She rears up and back and together they cry to each other, suspended in an oxytocin-love-bubble. Waaa waaa / I love you / I love you. Waaaaaa waaaaaa / I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve been waiting for you. Waaaaa / You’re perfect. ... In the dim light, mother and father and baby curled on the bed together examining each other in the most primal ritual of humankind. The team settles and sits; silent, reverent and watchful. To hold this sacred space is the biggest honor of my life. Glances are exchanged. We can read each other’s eyes. ... This is my new student’s second birth, her eyes glitter as she takes it all in. My student assigned to baby, glances up and nods with a stethoscope still in her ears and whispers 140, 60. The student who just caught the baby takes off her gloves like they are holy and magical, she can’t quite believe what just happened. She smiles, bashful with her newly experienced skills. I set up to suture. Baby latches. The room goes quiet again. The papa asks what time it is. The windows have warmed from blackberry to raspberry, the minarets are calling from the mosque across town and the bus’s musical horn filters through. It’s 5:45 AM. ... Midwives straddle the threshold between the ethers sometimes we must be the bridge between the worlds, occasionally we must actually reach across time and space to bring the soul into his body, but today we just received a ripe baby-love as he fell from his mama-tree dripping with nectar. Today we just held the sacred space so that magic could be with made and witnessed, so that power could be healed and claimed; so that love could be born. ... #MagicalLifestyle #midwifelife #midwiferywisdom See more

I had the requisite 4th grade health class - I learned the word ‘period,’ but that was about it. I was fortunate, though, to start my midwifery path when I w...as 15, so it wasn’t long before I learned that women have a lot of unlearning and reclaiming to do around our anatomy and physiology - not just so that we love ourselves more, but so that we can learn to read our own ‘vital signs.’ For example: The word vagina is often used to refer to everything ‘south of the border.’, But your vagina is actually not what you see when you're standing in the mirror or having a peek - that’s your vulva. Your vagina is the internal tube. Discharge is due to your body protecting and balancing pH and clearing away dead cells, arousal, or cervical mucus changes in your cycle. It can also indicate microbial imbalance or infection. Your vagina should have a scent - and that’s not usually the garden fresh one the feminine products industry sells us. Getting to know your own natural scents is a great tool to detect when your period is coming, when you’re ovulating, or if your vaginal microbiome or hormones are out of whack and need some TLC. Yes to tone, no to tight. The vagina is a muscle, which means it changes all the time - it can stretch, move, widen, tighten, and strengthen like any other muscles. If you’ve had a baby vaginally, you probably notice a difference. A tight vagina is a heteronormative, misogynist construct. Please don’t scrub it with soap: Your vagina is completely self-cleaning. Soaps and douches are not needed, and are harmful to your vaginal flora, sensitive vulva, and contain endocrine disruptors. No two vulvas look alike: It’s like a fingerprint - each of us has our own unique appearance, and folds, shape, size. We’re all beautiful. Never had a look? I have a blog that will walk you through getting to know your lady parts and all the wonderful things they tell you, at the link here: https://avivaromm.com/lady-parts/ And a very special announcement coming next week about my next book!! @weareungirls for post inspo. See more

Is there a bonus being paid to doctors for inducing their pregnant patients at 39 week? I ask because all of my clients are being pushed to submit to this ! All... of them ! They simply are reinventing the script. Suddenly human beings no longer require 40 weeks in the womb. One poorly done study says so - so it must be true! And it’s now better to endure almost 4 days of induction , rather than allow physiological labor which for the average first time mother is 24 hours. I’m so outraged ... This isn’t scientific people - this is all about making money ... and pushing women to distrust their bodies and the many factual ,scientific ,benefits of spontaneous physiological childbirth ...

I get asked from time to time to give concrete examples of systemic racism in maternity care. Here's one that came across my desk today. I've been looking at ...one of the Anti-D leaflets handed out in the UK. Not only is it full of pictures of white people, but it says that. "About 85% of people have the RhD Factor, and the other 15% do not." I have been researching this area for more than 20 years, so I can tell you that that figure is only true for people of European descent. In fact, one per cent of people of Asian descent, eight percent of people of African descent and 15 percent of people of European descent are rhesus negative. The fact that we give out information leaflets containing data and pictures which only represent and relate to white people is systemic racism. Photo by Emmanuel Phaeton on Unsplash #midwife #midwifery #midwiferystudent #blm #blackbirthmatters #blackbirthsmatter #antid #rhesus #rhesusnegative #drsarawickham #writersofinstagram See more

Peace and joy personified! #twins born at home, in water, 28 minutes apart. Their three sleeping children will awake in a couple hours to meet their new ...sister and brother. Picture courtesy of Breanna Lynch Photography. @breannalynchphotography Perfect! @lindseymeehleis @ashleesourapas @mia_elana3 #homebirth #waterbirth #twinsathome #trustbirth #drstuspodcast #informedconsent See more

And she wore a simple hair tie around her wrist so that she could pull her hair back as she labored...and then her baby came into the world with his cord also a...round his wrist. An incredible moment I couldn't have planned better even if I tried (which is one of the one thousand things I love about birth).

Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay more than $100 million to resolve more than 1,000 lawsuits blaming its baby powder for causing cancer, in the first set of major settlements in four years of litigation. The accords, struck with several law firms, signal that the world’s largest maker of health care products is trying to get ahead of the burgeoning litigation, with some 20,000 lawsuits still pending. They mark the first time Johnson & Johnson has settled the bulk of a plaintiffs lawyer’s cases in the baby powder suits, rather than individual suits on the eve of or during trial. RFK JR

When Your Client Considers Switching to a Home Birth at 41 Weeks . @philadoula Hana Grace Lehmann (she/they) shares about supporting her client & friend, Anna...lise (she/her), through her pregnancy and birth. Annalise was set to have an unmedicated birth at the hospital, but when she reached forty weeks, COVID-19 hit, and the hospital put in place new restrictions. Annalise started considering other birthing options, and Hana faced the possibility of providing virtual support for the first time, or hosting a birth in her own house. . Listen now on iTunes, Spotify, any other podcast listening app, or on our website: doulastories.com (link in bio) See more

She refused to get out of the birth tub when it became apparent that her little sister would soon join them. Instead, she stood there with open arms and an eager smile because, like most children...she knew birth was nothing to fear.