Jennifer's Birth Blog

Lynchburg Survey – Chance to win a $40 Target Gift Card

Birth Matters of Lynchburg is asking you to help us serve our community by answering a brief survey about what you’d most like to see addressed at our meetings. The survey can be found in my side bar.  We want you to be excited about our meetings!

You must live within 70 miles of Lynchburg to be counted in the survey results and to be entered in the February 26th drawing for a $40 Target gift card.  If you would like to be entered, just include contact information in the appropriate place. We appreciate your help, and hope you’ll join us at our next meeting!

Community Open House

Birth Matters Lynchburg chapter will be hosting a Community Open House event January 19th from 6-9 PM.

We will be giving away MANY door prizes, including books, gift certificates, handmade cards, and food, as well as offering a chance to win a $40 Target gift card simply by filling out a survey!*

The open house is an opportunity for expectant families and prenatal/childbirth care professionals to connect and share information, as well as a chance to get out, have some healthy, delicious refreshments, learn more about pregnancy and childbirth, and have a great time.

If you have any questions, please feel free to call me at 434.841.4645 or Heather Meyer at 434.509.9019

We look forward to seeing you there!

Community Open House hosted by Birth Matters Lynchburg
January 19, 2010 6 – 9 PM
First Christian Church
3109 Rivermont Ave.

You can also visit us on the web at birthmattersva.org

*If you would like to fill out a survey, you may do so here. Random drawing takes place February 12, 2010. You must be in the Lynchburg, VA area to enter.

Special Event: Meet the Doulas!

Join me and two of my colleagues, Heather Meyer of Beautiful Birthing and Laurie Flower of Anticipation and Beyond, as we host a gathering just for you – the expectant families of our community.

We will serve healthy refreshments and have samples and information on hand as we teach you comfort measures for pregnancy and birth.

This free class will feature our expertise as well as an opportunity to meet other pregnant women. We look forward to meeting you and sharing our tips for a beautiful birth experience!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009, 6 PM – 8 PM at Fresh Air Natural Foods, 2264 Lakeside Drive, Lynchburg.

Perinatal: Birth Symposium

I was fortunate to attend the Perinatal Birth Symposium held at George Mason University last week, and will be dedicating the next few posts to some of the highlights of the event.

First, I must confess that the best part for me was meeting Henci Goer. She’s a power house in the birth advocacy world, and it was truly an honor to get to walk with her and chat a bit. But she was only one of many remarkable women I got to meet, and I look forward to sharing some of them with you.

The event was organized by Jessica Clements. From her bio on the symposium site:

Jessica Clements is a feminist, a mother of two, and a painter. She holds a BA in English from Grinnell College; and she is currently completing her MFA at George Mason University, where she also teaches drawing, painting, and aesthetics. Her work, with an interview by Imogen Tyler, will be published in the upcoming Birth issue of Feminist Review.

Her art work greeted us as we entered the main welcome center in Harris Theater. At first glance, I thought a small print I saw was a photograph! She has captured the incredible moment that a baby emerges from her mother’s body with softness and detail but minus shame and fear.  Her images show babies on the perineum, a mother reaching to touch her baby’s head as it begins to crown, and the beauty of a round belly, in the warm and cool mottled tones of real flesh.

These are the images we all wonder about but are afraid to vocalize – what does normal birth look like?  What will my body do, exactly?  It was refreshing and touching to see it presented so honestly.

To view a few of her paintings of birth, go here. Do be warned, though, that the images are raw and true to life, and may not be considered safe for work.

Next installment: are birth issues  women’s rights, or human rights?

The Art of Listening

I want to talk a bit today about mindful listening, and how important a skill it is for a doula to have.

When I first trained as a doula and began attending births, I brought the “bag of tricks” I’d heard so much about. I had massagers, oils, snacks, drinks, hairbrushes, lip balm, rice socks, rolling pins…everything but the kitchen sink! And while some of those things were helpful some of the time, the tool I found myself reaching for again and again was attentiveness. Mindful listening.

It’s more than just hearing what’s said. It’s really about hearing what isn’t said, the cues and prompts a laboring woman gives about what is helping her and what is not. It means being fully present in the moment, and not trying to reach too hard for the trick you learned that one time, or the thing that worked with the last birth.

I don’t mean to say that techniques are not important. They absolutely are, and continuing to learn and read and participate in dialogues about childbirth are vitally so. But there are moments when you are unsure, when a mom is struggling, or you don’t quite know what she needs yet.

Often when I first arrive, it takes us a little while to get into a state of flow, to find the right dance steps. During this time, the best place for me is in a position of watchful listening.

The relationship between a laboring woman and her doula is a dance in which the birthing woman takes the lead.

I simply remind her why she’s dancing.