Resources
Recommended Products
For use during labor and birth. Comfortable, versatile, inflatable support designed to help mothers adopt and maintain positions that are physically the most helpful for them and their babies during labor and birth.
Provides a natural way to manage labor intensity by using acupressure and the gate control theory to reduce the perceived intensity of labor pain.
Birth ball that can be used throughout pregnancy but also utilized for postion changes and promote movement throughout the labor process.
When planning a homebirth and the possibility of using a birth tub inside the home. This is a recommneded layer of protection between the tub and your floor.
Reading
If you want to read just one book to prepare for childbirth, this is the book I would recommend you read. Ina May Gaskin, is a world renowned midwife that has inspired midwives to become midwives, birthing families to trust in the physiology of birth. She has broken through barriers and thanks to her work has continued to educate birth workers and birthing people all over the world.
Even though this book was originally published in the 70’s , it has continued to be updated to bring current information about birth and different practices surrounding birth and breastfeeding. It is like a breath of fresh air when it comes to talking about Midwifery and how and why it is so important to women’s healthcare and necessary in this time where we people need to claim their power back!
Ina May Gaskin in this book helps us understand how to reclaim our power back, rekindle our internal knowledge that this birthing process is normal and should be allowed to occur physiologically. With different practices in different settings i. hospitals where this has become a rights issue. Birthing people should be able to make their informed decision and be respected for them even they sometimes do not align with our own.
Dr. Michel Odent is a French Obstetrician who was one of the first, if not THE first to publish articles about the physiology of birth and unmedicated methods to cope with labor and birth, i.e the use of birth pools. He also talks about the importance of initiation of breastfeeding after birth. His works, books and interviews are super informative and help bring back the trust in our bodies’ wisdom.
Watching
Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and The Farm Midwives captures a spirited group of women who taught themselves how to deliver babies on a 1970s hippie commune. Today as nearly one third of all US babies are born via C-section, they fight to protect their knowledge and to promote respectful, safe maternity practices all over the globe. From the backs of their technicolor school buses, these pioneers rescued American midwifery from extinction, changed the way a generation approached pregnancy, and filmed nearly everything they did. With unprecedented access to the midwives' archival video collection, as well as modern day footage of life at the alternative intentional community where they live, this documentary shows childbirth the way most people have never seen it--unadorned, unabashed, and awe-inspiring.
Pregnant In America is the true story of Steve and Mandy Buonaugurio, a young, adventurous, expectant couple, who decide to take a daring and potentially dangerous approach to having their first child--outside the modern American medical system. What they learn about hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, midwives, and home birth as they travel across the United States and Europe interviewing experts and confronting birthing situations, exposes them to some shocking and disturbing realities about America¹s maternity care system and what is happening to women and babies. Ultimately, what they learn impacts on and alters the outcome of their own pregnancy.
Birth: it's a miracle. A rite of passage. A natural part of life. But more than anything, birth is a business. Compelled to find answers after a disappointing birth experience with her first child, actress Ricki Lake recruits filmmaker Abby Epstein to explore the maternity care system in America. Focusing on New York City, the film reveals that there is much to distrust behind hospital doors and follows several couples who decide to give birth on their own terms. There is an unexpected turn when director Epstein not only discovers she is pregnant, but finds the life of her child on the line. Should birth be viewed as a natural life process, or should every delivery be treated as a potential medical emergency?
Doulas
