To my wonderful mamas, all their sweet babies, my dear friends and beloved family...
2010…..WHAT AN AMAZING, AWESOME & TREMENDOUS YEAR FOR SPIRIT OF LIFE MIDWIFERY!!!
In 2010 I had the honor and privilege to “sit at the feet” of some incredible women!! I have always known the mommas and babies are the true teachers! I have learned so much about the strength and beauty of women during pregnancy, giving birth and becoming mothers. YOU WOMEN ROCK!!
The joys, the sorrows, the challenges and triumphs of 2010 have helped me become the best midwife I can be and the best human being I can be.
Moving forward into 2011, as Spirit of Life Midwifery continues to grow, I give thanks to each mama, papa and “freshly born” baby for your support. I LOVE my work as a midwife and look forward to the opportunity to share in this powerful, magical time with you.
I leave you with this beautiful poem …..
To experience the birth of a child
is to participate in the drama of creation
having experienced it
we will never be the same.
No child, no universe,
no mountain, sea or poem
was ever born without great labor,
yet when that labors done
there exists a thing of beauty,
with a life all its own.
to experience the birth of a child
is to witness the promise of tomorrow
our hopes and dreams are all renewed
by the child who rest peacefully
safe within our arms. ~ by Ronnie Sellers ~
ALL THE BEST TO ALL OF YOU IN 2011!!!
Sheila Simms Watson, LM, CPM,
Spirit Of Life Traditional Midwifery, Inc
Join Spirit of Life Traditional Midwifery's Village Forum! In our village forum connect with others with a shared commitment to traditional, natural out of hospital birth. Meet here to share your ideas, hopes, questions, and dreams. Join Us Today ⇒
We are helping our mothers, families, and community through practicing traditional midwifery. Women have been helping, supporting and teaching women since the beginning of time. Pregnancy and birth are fundamentally healthy processes that are normal, natural parts of a woman's life. Share in our celebration of life...We are proud to introduce to you our 2010 babies Video!
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Dear Sheila:
You are the great Mother of all Mothers ...
Like the Moon, like the Sea
Offering Light, offering salt
Through the dark of awareness
As we find our way into mothering
To become mothers
And the Woman I am meant to be
Thank you
For your strength as I find my strenght
For who you are spills out into my
Family
Our Children
Forever
You are truly dear, Sheila Wendy ~
January 1, 2008
Surgeon General's Call to Action: A Roadmap to Improving Support for Breastfeeding Mothers:
Washington, DC—The United States Breastfeeding Committee (USBC) applauds the passage of the health care reform package, in particular, the workplace breastfeeding support provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The provision states that employers shall provide reasonable, unpaid break time and a private, non-bathroom place for an employee to express breast milk for her nursing child for one year after the child's birth. Employers with less than 50 employees are not subject to the requirement if it would cause "undue hardship."
I wanted to alert you all that ACOG has released a new committee opinion on home birth - The press release is at http://www.acog.org/from_home/publications/press_releases/nr01-20-11.cfm
The full Committee Opinion #476, "Planned Home Birth," is published in the February 2011 issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Unfortunately, but not surprisingly the opinion leans heavily on the flawed Wax et.al. study published in AJOG last summer.
As a small step forward, the ACOG Committee on Obstetric Practice has said (for the first time, perhaps?) that while it believes that hospitals and birth centers are the safest settings for birth “it respects the right of a woman to make a medically informed decision about delivery.”
ACNM is reviewing the statement (which we too are seeing for the first time) and likely will issue a commentary. We look forward to any comments you wish to share.
Lorrie Kline Kaplan, CAE
Executive Director
American College of Nurse-Midwives
8403 Colesville Road, Suite 1550
Silver Spring, MD 20910 www.acnm.org
Born at Home -We had an advanced screening party for Born at Home on janurary 20th. Below is a detailed synopsis of the movie reprinted from Matrika-India. Please visit http://www.matrika-india.org/Research.html to get the details about this important project.
'Born at Home' observes indigenous birth practices and practitioners in parts of India - rural Rajasthan, Bihar, and an urban working class area of Delhi.
Poised between social reality and the eternal mystery of childbearing, the film presents an intricate delineation of the figure of the dai (midwife) who is almost always a low-caste, poor woman. The dais' methods are holistic, conceiving of childbirth not as pathology but continuation of organic life.
Dais handle about 50% of the births in India. Her inherited skills, though accessible and low-cost, are continually devalued by the
mainstream. The film poses a critical question - why does the state not recognise the almost one million traditional practitioners in the country?
Site Search: Not sure exactly what you are looking for? Then use our site search to help you find what you are looking for within our site.
learn how to live in harmony with your pregnancy!
Focus on VBAC
Mom defies doctor, has baby her way
In the comfort of your own home surounded by your family not strangers...This is one reason that homebirths offer a superrior experience to hospital births.
By Elizabeth Cohen, Senior Medical Correspondent
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Aneka decided to give birth vaginally after having C-sections
She was told her actions were irresponsible and that she could die
Vaginal births after cesarean sections pose some risk, but so does having another cesarean
(CNN) -- On Thursday, December 2, as Aneka sat at home nine months pregnant, the phone rang.
It was her obstetrician wanting to know where the heck she was. Did Aneka forget that today was the day for her cesarean section? How could she have forgotten?
No, Aneka hadn't forgotten. She hadn't shown up intentionally.
"She told me, 'You're being irresponsible. Your baby could die. You could die,'" Aneka recalls. Then the doctor hung up.
Aneka (she doesn't want her last name used) had already resolved to not have a C-section, even though the doctor told her it was absolutely necessary. She wasn't going to be opened up surgically, no matter what her doctor said, no matter what any doctor said.
In some online communities, Aneka is a hero who defied the obstetrical establishment and gave birth her way. To many doctors, however, she's a risk-taker who put her and her baby in peril by giving birth at home.
'No, no, no, you can't do this'
Aneka's story begins nine years ago with the birth of her first daughter, Nya. After 10 hours of labor, her doctor told her she wasn't progressing quickly enough, and she needed a C-section.
"I didn't know any better, so I said OK," Aneka says.
In a postpartum visit six weeks later, the doctor told her she'd needed the surgery because her hips were too small to pass the baby.
"I thought to myself, what's she talking about, I don't have small hips," Aneka remembers.
Four years later, doctors told Aneka she couldn't deliver her second child vaginally, since Nya had been delivered by C-section. Studies show when a woman gives birth vaginally after having had a previous C-section, there's a higher chance her uterus will rupture since she's pushing against scar tissue.
Then again, when Aneka was pregnant with her third child, son Adasjan, she had a C-section for the same reason.
When she became pregnant with her fourth child, a boy named Annan Ni'em, she expected to have a fourth C-section. But about seven months into her pregnancy, Aneka started to read more about childbirth online, and noticed a documentary by actress Ricki Lake called "The Business of Being Born," a film released in 2008 that questions the way American women have babies.
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Breastfeeding Benefits Boys' Brains from CNN's Elizabeth Cohen on a new study showing breast-fed children score considerably higher academically at age 10.
Breastfeeding Benefits Boys' Brains
By Kristina Fiore, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
December 20, 2010
Review Breastfeeding for at least six months has been associated with enhanced immunity and other benefits for children -- but a prospective study from Australia suggests breastfeeding may also yield academic benefits later in a child's life, at least for boys.
The study, which followed almost 3,000 children from birth onward, found those who were predominantly breastfed for six months or longer had significantly higher scores on standardized tests of reading, math, and spelling at age 10 compared with kids breastfed for shorter periods, according to Wendy Oddy, PhD, of Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth in Western Australia, and colleagues.
This is a ten-minute fundraiser trailer for the film, "The Other Side of the Glass: Finally, A Birth Film Series for Fathers" will be in four parts to the film. Part I and 2 are in production.
I went into labor on my estimated due date, November 14, 2010. It was a Sunday. Contractions were only once an hour and were mostly mild. My husband, Rob, called Sheila and updated her. That evening, we went to bed and I was able to sleep through the contractions.
On Monday early morning, contractions picked up to about once every 15-20 minutes. We asked our friend to come pick up our 3 year-old son, Colby. In the meantime, contractions slowed back down to once every 30 minutes or so. In the early afternoon, Rob and I went for a walk around our neighborhood. Contractions increased to every 7 minutes or so. Back at home, I had another nap. We had a very relaxing day together, spending it alone with each other and talking about our little girl. In the early evening, a friend came over and he and Rob played their guitars and sang a few songs for me. Contractions went back to every 15-20 minutes.
Good nutrition during pregnancy, and enough of it, is very important for your baby to grow and develop. You should consume about 300 more calories per day than you did before you became pregnant.
Although nausea and vomiting during the first few months of pregnancy can make this difficult, try to eat a well balanced diet and take prenatal vitamins. Here are some recommendations to keep you and your baby healthy.
Goals for Healthy Eating When Pregnant
Eat a variety of foods to get all the nutrients you need. Recommended daily servings include 6-11 servings of breads and grains, two to four servings of fruit, four or more servings of vegetables, four servings of dairy products, and three servings of protein sources (meat, poultry, fish, eggs or nuts). Use fats and sweets sparingly...
Most Appropriate and Safe Choice for Majority of Women
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Listen up. The leading group of obstetricians in this country now 0ays it's quite all right for most women who've given birth by cesarean section to try a vaginal birth the next time around.
Guidelines just put out by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say a vaginal birth after cesarean, or VBAC, is the most appropriate and safe choice for the majority of women.
In 2009, International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN) contacted over 2800 hospitals in the United States to determine the VBAC policy of every institution that provides maternity services.
If you are a pregnant woman and living on an island In the Florida Keys, you still have choices for the birth of your dreams. You are not stranded.
Driving ninety minutes south, we explored the Key West hospital and a midwife we immediately liked. Driving ninety minutes north, we visited a birth center in Miami and. team of midwives to choose from. Though my husband really wanted our son to have a Conch birth certificate (Key West stamped), we ultimately chose to drive north.
I knew I would not be comfortable in any tiny hospital bed. Comfort was of utmost importance to me, in order to allow the labor and birthing process to progress smoothly and quickly. I also knew that if drugs were readily available, such as they are in a hospital, I might quickly succumb to the temptation and thus, increase my chances of additional interventions.
A home birth gives you more control over who is present and involved with your birth. Many families choose to have their children, siblings, or family or friends present and part of the birth experience. Read More »
A peaceful journey of a home waterbirth. Photos courtesy of Stephanie Anders Photography:
My Journey into Traditional Midwifery - "Carrying on the Art & Tradition of Midwifery"
A friend planted the seed of midwifery...
which was the seed of change in my life, in 1980. I was pregnant with my first child and my friend said, “Why don’t you choose a midwife?” Midwife?
I knew nothing about whom or what that was. So, my journey began! I got a book from the library and contacted the midwifery service at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City and on March 29, 1981 I had my first child with help of Midwives...
We are now on Facebook, YouTube, Blogger and Twitter! Ok, so many of you are already friends on my facebook page, and are likely wondering what is the big deal. Well, you are right it is not new, but what I believe is that it is more deliberate.
In working over the past few months to pull together the everything we needed for my website project, I had to really think about what I wanted for my mothers, families, collogues, and community. I even had to look at how my role as a midwife was impacting you all.
One of the brightest spots in this process was the live, engaged, happy and loving community that we have already built on Facebook.
In many ways this was one of the inspirations for taking the new website in the direction that was chosen. My many dear friends who share with me the greatest parts of themselves everyday on Facebook by posting pictures of their growing families, where they are, what they are doing and the many activities and events that we are posting back and forth on our walls.
In creating the Spirit of Life's Facebook page, we worked to tie it into the overall theme of the website. Education! I get so many excellent posts and links about trends, activities, politics, health and midwifery in general from everyone. With the new Facebook page we are pulling those things into this new page. I have also taken many great posts and included them on my blog "In My Mother's House" and also posted them in our village forums.
So If you have not done so already, please stop by our social media pages and add Spirit of Life to your friend list by "Like" us on Facebook, "Follow Us" on Twitter, "Subscribe" to our YouTube Channel and "Follow" us on Blogger...ok, so you get it, here is your official invitation to Join Our Conversation!
Periodically I feature a different birth, recording my activities and visits with the mother and family right up to the actual delivery....
In this journal I featured a VBAC birth. I named it VBAC - Very Beautiful and Courageous (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean). That is what I call all the women who have had previously c-sections and go for natural/vaginal births – Very Beautiful and Courageous women!!! I have the honor of attending many VBAC women mostly home but some in hospital also.
Here’s a VBAC story...
Mama J had one previous c-section 4 years prior. She originally was seeing an local OB in hopes of a vaginal delivery but very soon found out this would not be the case. She began to search her options and found out about homebirth as an option. She called me with questions and we met for a consult appointment.
I immediately could see and feel her determination to birth her baby vaginally and at home. She and her husband expressed their concerns, their wishes and desires.
Please click here to continue reading about this powerful and beautiful birth...
Please click here If you would like to be featured and submit a journal request!...
Listen up. The leading group of obstetricians in this country now 0ays it's quite all right for most women who've given birth by cesarean section to try a vaginal birth the next time around.
Driving ninety minutes south, we explored the Key West hospital and a midwife we immediately liked. Driving ninety minutes north, we visited a birth center in Miami and. team of midwives to choose from. Though my husband really wanted our son to have a Conch birth certificate (Key West stamped), we ultimately chose to drive north.
