For birth givers

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For birth givers

For Birth Givers is the practice of Hope Hamilton, licensed midwife, in Birmingham, AL.

Please visit forbirthgivers.com for information regarding pregnancy/birth/postpartum home midwifery care, fertility services including at-home IUI, and monitrice services.

09/30/2025

“The Elder Tree is quite renown
Thousands of years it’s been around
Folklore says where it is found
Is the doorway to the underground…”

—From Sylvia Chatroux in her poem Elder

Cold and flu season is upon us, and this elixir is powerful medicine for the prevention and treatment of viral bugs all around with extra vitamin C and spice friends to get the medicine exactly where it needs to be in the body.

Let me know if you need or want a 4 oz bottle ($33) from my apothecary. Safe for the family 1 year old and beyond.

09/23/2025

Sabbatical—a time of holy ‘rest’ and ‘cessation’

With immense gratitude, I can say that as of this week the last baby is safely here, and all the beautiful birth givers are on the other side and firmly in their fourth trimesters ✨

While I’ll be somewhat present here and for all things herbs and plants, my comprehensive midwifery care, including fertility work, is entering the dormant season in alignment with my personal journey of pregnancy, labor/birth, and postpartum.

Be back in a limited capacity in the Springtime, then I’ll be in Europe Summer 2026 for the triennial conference, and back Fall of 2026 (at least that’s the plan right now) for due dates and the full course of care. Please reach out if you need Midwife contacts and consult, and I’ll help point you in the right direction.

“Be still, my soul, and steadfast.
Earth and heaven both are still watching
though time is draining from the clock
and your walk, that was confident and quick,
has become slow.

So, be slow if you must, but let
the heart still play its true part.
Love still as once you loved, deeply
and without patience. Let God and the world
know you are grateful. That the gift has been given.”

—The Gift by Mary Oliver

09/19/2025

Marshmallow, Althaea officinalis

Maybe it’s not so noticeable today with its 90°+ temps and burning hot sun, but the season is shifting. Praise be. Equinox is upon us, and I can smell all the autumnal things and feel it in my body—the dryness, the deepening, the yearn for balance and slow—and the craving for marshmallow(s).

All parts of the marshmallow plant are edible, but it’s the root that’s deeply medicinal —demulcent (moisturizing), anti-inflammatory, emollient (softening and soothing, expectorant, vulnerary, anti-bacterial, antitussive (prevent or relieve a cough and heartburn), alterative, nutritive, mild laxative, and diuretic.

Best prepared as a COLD infusion—2 to 4g of root per cup of cold water overnight to soak, and then strain and enjoy as is or add your sweetener of choice. Also you can add this infusion to your marshmallow recipe for a gut supportive treat. Tastes earthy and sweet and is cooling and heavy (rooting) to the body.

This hoop was made for a Birth Giver Siren and here’s the note that accompanied the hoop—

“Mallow flower, leaf, and root for comical (err…not so) commemoration of heartburn—persistent and present throughout—but also ‘mallow’ means healing. It brings moisture to the body, and water is life. Mallow is a balm for the dry and thirsty Earth. It lubricates the singers throat. All parts are edible, and she exists for balance and wholeness.”

**Mallow is a safe herb for everyone; and also caution as mallow can slow the absorption of drugs, nutrients and other herbal constituents. Take on an empty stomach a few hours apart from other herbs or drugs to mitigate this effect.

08/23/2025

I’m a day late for National Rainbow Baby Day but this stitched Daffodil was for a family who experienced so much waiting for their Rainbow Babe before turning to assisted reproductive therapies. Then finally at the turn of 37 weeks gestation in a manner very quick for a first time birth, he came in Daffodil season and on the rainiest Spring Day—the kind that’s perfect for making rainbows.

08/19/2025

REMEMBER

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

—Joy Harjo

08/13/2025

Doesn’t that first pic look like an ancient oil rendering of the most holy moment?

You’re an artist of the utmost and highest.

As a midwife, I, on the reg, get to see people work really really hard with their bodies to birth themselves and their babies. It’s deep work. It’s often hours and hours of hold and release and movement and crying and laughter and water and blood and leaning in and on, but I’ve never yet seen anyone push as hard and as long as you and then somehow have the strength and presence to be your own best advocate at the hospital. I knew you were a badass, and I never doubted what you did, but holy goodness, thank you forever for teaching me so many lessons and eliciting those sacred gasps that keep me in a state of perpetual awe.

In your words, Strong Mother—

For 45 hours, Silas and I worked together in a way that I could never explain - I can only feel. We experienced an intrapartum transfer, and while there are many heavy emotions that come with that story, regret is not one of them.

I had been pushing for 15 hours at home when Silas let us know he was beginning to feel the stress of it all. His heart tones began to decel with contractions, and it was no longer fair to him to stay at home with the way things were going. I got in the shower, prayed in the spirit, came to terms with the decision we had to make, and had a good cry. Connor got us to the hospital in record time, where I immediately had to fight my way through the call for a cesarean and the lies that “my pelvis wasn’t big enough for this baby”. The first picture shows my devoted birth team (minus the talented who was taking these invaluable-to-me photos) that truly never left my side. Their care, commitment, and kindness will never leave my heart. The second shows how Silas and I finally worked our way to a crown, with my mom fervently praying alongside us as she did the entirety of our labor. The third shows the moment that we met - at last, we had done it. I still got my unmedicated, vaginal birth, AND a strong, beautiful (cone-headed at birth) baby boy.

08/03/2025

I wish y’all could see these hues of gold and cream in real life. Holding all this hard made and extracted milk is humbling and sacred. This is community and generosity and survival through cooperation and the stuff of life and love. This is costly, precious sustenance given for a baby who needs a little extra to thrive in these first days and weeks of life.

Reflecting on everything needed to make this elixir and of course connecting it the undeniable political nature of breastfeeding and lactation. Perpetual anatomical awe and lament. Holding Palestinian parents unable to give the stuff of life because of human-made famine and others around the world who don’t have the plenty required and deserved to beget and what an unnatural violence that is and the generational curse of it all.

Here’s a relatable excerpt from a 2018 On Being episode called ‘Goodbye, Breastfeeding’ (link in bio) in honor of World Breastfeeding Week.

“The anatomical awe of it never completely wore off either. I would have these moments of floating outside of myself looking down and thinking:

“I am nursing this baby. Milk that my body is somehow producing is her sole source of nutrients, the only way she is staying alive and growing. WTF?”

I did it for over five years, with a little pregnant break, and it still baffles me. It still seems like magic, the weirdest, most wild trick that humanity plays (other than the whole growing and birthing a new human through your body thing).”

A prayer for the return of the “magic, the weirdest, most wild trick that humanity plays” for anybody and everybody, anywhere and anytime who wants to experience it personally or by proxy.

07/21/2025

‘Let go’

One of the most powerfully paradoxical birth affirmations there is and also the mantra of this wee edible flower that has come and gone from the land but is still present in our syrups, teas, salves, etc. Violets are a meditative reminder of the oft times simple, but tenacious work of interconnectedness. When it doesn’t make sense, when fears born from past experience try to inform our present, when we’re scared because it feels all too vulnerable, Violets whisper, “It’s ok. Trust and dare to have faith.”

Violet is cooling and moistening to the body; topically it promotes wound healing. It also plays well with others and is synergistic with herbs that amplify its inherent qualities. Its petals and specifically its leaves are heart-shaped, which aligns with an Andrea Gibson (presenté!) poem I read this week called Royal Heart. Here is an excerpt that gives Violet energy—

“…you can choose to bury your past
in the garden
beside the tulips
water it
until it’s so alive
it lets go
and you belong to yourself
again

When you belong to yourself again
Remember forgiveness
is not a tidy grave
It is a ready loyal knight kneeling before your royal heart

Call in your royal heart
Tell it bravery cannot be measured by a lack of fear
It takes guts to tremble
It takes so much tremble to love…”

This embroidery was for a birth giver who fought hard to let go, and then she did. My goodness; I’ll never forget the power of that. Then she named her baby Violet.

Address

Birmingham, AL

Telephone

+12053818127

Website

http://forbirthgivers.com/

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