Celebrate your sweet cherub's arrival with Mother Me home support and be mothered yourself, at the same time, by a Mother Me postnatal doula.
Why give flowers to a new mom when you can give a qualified Mother Me doula?
Mother Me is offering a contest for new moms, to win 16 hours of home support, valued at approx. $400.
Mother Me Doulas:
Are certified to take care of both you and your newborn
Provide home support for you and your family performed in a respectful and sensitive manner
Offer newborn care, bathing, feeding, massage and comfort techniques
Provide breastfeeding education and emotional support
Assist with your day to day household tasks
Are specialized to care for twins and triplets.
How to Enter? They want to know:
What is the most outrageous or comical advice you have been given about parenting?
Submit your answer by email with your name and contact information. Please send your answer to motherme@shaw.ca by February 14th. Winner to be announced by email on February 15th, 2008.
Who Can Enter? Anyone having or has had a baby from January 14th, 2008 to March 14th, 2008. Also, friends or family wanting to give this as a gift to a loved one who has had or is expecting a baby during this time period.
All new moms will love this gift!
You Can Win: The winner will receive a gift certificate totaling $400 that must be used by July 2008.
The following was posted on the Waterbirth International website last week. Please note this week's update at the bottom of this post as well.
For twenty plus years Waterbirth International and Barbara Harper have been guiding mothers and their providers, offering education and birth pools all over the world. Waterbirth International is facing the very difficult truth that the Gentle Birth World Congress - a fabulous success in every way for international and local attendees - drained all of our resources. With the help of those around the world the doors will stay open while we reorganize and seek new volunteers and board members.
We still need to raise $175,000 in donations to cover the debts from the Congress. With such a large sum to raise, we need each of you to support this cause. When you support waterbirth, you are making a statement that you want and need options, choices and more control.
Can you help us stay open to take the next phone call?
to convince an obstetrician to incorporate waterbirth into his/her practice
to work with the nurse midwives to install pools in their facilities
to educate an entire hospital on the benefits of allowing women freedom of movement in the water
to continue our resource services for parents and professionals
We have freely given these services over the past 20 years. We want to continue to give them freely, but we need your help to keep the phones turned on and the volunteers working.
How much is it worth to see waterbirth become the norm in the US, like it is in the UK? I think we only need a few more years to make that happen. Women really do want waterbirth to be an available choice in every hospital. They need choices now, more than ever.
If we need to call every single waterbirth parent personally, we will. We don't want 25 years of pioneering work to end and the vision of safe and beautiful waterbirth to go away.
Buy a birth video and donate it to your local library
Spread the word around the world: Post this message on other sites and blogs
UPDATE:
World community rallies support.
Midwives, parents, doctors, doulas, childbirth educators, grandparents, business owners - all send letters of support along with donations, membership and orders in the Waterbirth International eStore!! In just one week enough donations came in to pay bills, wages and taxes for Waterbirth International staff. There is still a long way to go, but many groups are hosting fund raisers in all parts US and around the world. The statement was loud, clear, strong and demonstrative - Waterbirth International MUST stay open to help millions more women and families.
This isn't exactly new news, the buzz about this film has been growing for a few months now, but I wanted to be sure to share it with you. Ricki Lake, actress and former talk-show host (remember?), has produced a new film on birth in the United States called The Business of Being Born which is in limited release around the US right now.
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 examine and question the way American women have babies.
The film interlaces intimate birth stories with surprising historical, political and scientific insights and shocking statistics about the current maternity care system. When director Epstein discovers she is pregnant during the making of the film, the journey becomes even more personal.
Should most births be viewed as a natural life process, or should every delivery be treated as a potentially catastrophic medical emergency?
The film is getting rave reviews within the birth community: the film was screened at the Gentle Birth conference (hosted by Waterbirth International) in Portland, OR in September 2007 and Ricki Lake is on the cover of the most recent issue of Mothering Magazine. Mothering Magazine online also has an interview with Ricki Lake which you can listen to right now.
The film includes amazing birth advocates like Ina May Gaskin, Robbie Davis-Floyd, Dr. Michel Odent and Dr. Marsden Wagner. I really can't wait to see this film. The trailer is incredibly inspiring and I am overjoyed to see someone who has the possibility of reaching so many people spreading the message that birth is normal and natural.
Primarily, I've been quite consumed with a major project for Sweet Home - our new naturals line (sourcing products, costing, having an internal shopping cart built to make shopping on our site more friendly for you, getting images together). More about Sweet Home Naturals in the next post.
There was of course also Christmas and all of the illnesses of fall and winter for myself and my family, lots of family visits during the fall, my dive back into University to finish my degree.
I also had the pleasure of exhibiting at the Canadian Association of Midwives annual conference held in Vancouver this past year from Nov 1-3. The conference was in Vancouver to celebrate 10 years of legalized midwifery in BC. There were a host of events for this major milestone held throughout the month and across the city, from a big party to open houses at the midwifery clinics.
The conference itself was a real treat. Midwives seem to be amazingly friendly, approachable, laid-back and of course, knowledgeable. The energy at the conference was upbeat and friendly. I was also fortunate to be able to take breaks from manning my table to sit in on a few of the sessions of the conference including some amazing new studies on home birth and on the attitudes of university students towards birth. I can't wait for these studies to be published to share the findings with you.
With the Naturals project wrapped up for now it means I will be able to devote more time to blogging and our newsletter. I've been looking forward to it. I hope to hear more from you too.
I am a childbirth educator, lactation consultant and placenta encapsulation specialist. I want to be an author, first focusing on menstruation and how our attitudes about it effect us.
Above all else I am Momma to Ella and Apollo, the 2 people who constantly rock my world.
