Birth Warrior Doula Services

04/05/2020

06/13/2019

Important information from Health Canada regarding Gentian Violet:

OTTAWA - Health Canada has completed a safety review of human health products and veterinary drugs containing gentian violet and has found that exposure to these products may increase the risk of cancer. Given the seriousness of this risk, Health Canada is advising Canadians to stop using all human....

04/18/2019

This is fascinating!

How’s this shot of a mumma using gravity and allow her body to open? The rhombus of Michaelis (sometimes called the quadrilateral of Michaelis) is a kite-shaped area that includes the three lower lumber vertebrae, the sacrum and that long ligament which reaches down from the base of the scull to the sacrum.

This wedge-shaped area of bone moves backwards during the second stage of labour and as it moves back it pushes the wings of the ilea out, increasing the diameters of the pelvis. We know it’s happening when the woman’s hands reach upwards (to find something to hold onto, her head goes back and her back arches.) It’s what Sheila Kitzinger was talking about when she recorded Jamaican midwives saying the baby will not be born ‘till the woman opens her back’. I’m sure that is what they mean by the ‘opening of the back’.

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"The reason that the woman’s arms go up is to find something to hold onto as her pelvis is going to become destabilised. This happens as part of physiological second stage; it’s an integral part of an active normal birth. If you’re going to have a normal birth you need to allow the rhombus of Michaelis to move backwards to give the baby the maximum amount of space to turn his shoulders in. Although the rhombus appears high in the pelvis and the lower lumbar spine when it moves backwards, it has the effect of opening the outlet as well.

When women are leaning forward, upright, or on their hands and knees, you will see a lump appear on their back, at and below waist level. It’s much higher up than you might think; you don’t look for it near her buttocks, you look for it near her waist."

Text by .com

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Image shared from Blissful Herbs - nurturing body & soul
Original photo from

04/17/2019

Even in birth, there are inequalities which need addressing.

03/12/2019

This belongs here lol

I am sharing this gem I have seen posted in several places now. I guess it’s been quite popular.😊

01/17/2019

08/14/2018

At least, that's how it felt to me! 😂😂😂

06/16/2018

What a wonderful demonstration of effacement and dilation!

02/17/2018

Fantastic read.

When can a premature baby start breastfeeding? Only when he reaches 34 weeks gestation? Not true. This photo shows a 28 week gestation baby,10 days old, and yes, latched on and breastfeeding, drinking. This is not "non-nutritive sucking". Experience from Scandinavia shows us this is very possible. Read more at http://ibconline.ca/premature2/

01/21/2018

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommendation that mothers with influenza be separated from their babies and not breastfeed makes no sense.

Mothers with influenza should continue to breastfeed. Here is why:

Influenza is infectious, as are most viral infections, BEFORE the person even realizes they are sick. The incubation period of influenza is said to be 1 to 4 days. Therefore, a person can be infectious 1 to 4 days before even realizing they have been infected. Breastfeeding mothers and babies share their environment and thus, wherever the mother picked up the infection, it is also likely the baby did as well.

Furthermore, just because you develop a fever, or cough, does not automatically mean you have influenza since winter is the season of many viral upper respiratory infections which are not always easy to distinguish one from another. Furthermore, not all people will rush down to get tested for influenza with the first time they cough and so the diagnosis will be delayed in most people once they do realize they are sick.

To separate a mother from her baby and ban breastfeeding has serious possible consequences. For babies as well as for toddlers, being refused the breast can be very emotionally traumatic, without necessarily preventing the illness in the baby/toddler, who might already have been infected. Furthermore, the stress of separation may actually increase the risk of illness in the infant/toddler. Not being able to breastfeed is likewise traumatic for the mother and may mean that at the time she is ill, engorgement increases her suffering and the task of having to maintain her supply and diminished milk supply from not breastfeeding.

Has the CDC forgotten the immunological protection that breastfeeding provides for the breastfeeding baby/toddler? Why is influenza different from most other infections? It's not. In fact, it is well known that babies who are breastfed remain healthy even when the mother falls ill with an infectious illness and if they do get sick, breastfeeding helps them get better faster. No other organization, including the WHO, has ever included influenza in the list of illness requiring stopping breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding mothers who have contracted influenza should get appropriate treatment and continue breastfeeding. In case their treatment includes antiviral medications such as oseltamivir (Tamiflu) or others, they are not a contraindication to breastfeeding.

Not only does the recommendation not make sense for protecting the baby from the infection, but as the family is living together, they almost always have been exposed and infected with the influenza virus. So who will be designated to take care of this baby?

Additionally, “interrupting” breastfeeding is term that takes for granted that it is simple to stop breastfeeding and subsequently to resume which is not the case.

Read more about how breastfeeding protects babies when a mother is sick: https://ibconline.ca/maternal-illness1/

03/22/2017

It's World Doula Week!