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Compassionate Birth

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Fort Collins, CO
Compassionate Birth

Prenatal and Perinatal Counselor
Family Advocate
Birth Trauma Specialist
Biodynamic Craniosacral The

07/07/2022

It's not your fault & there's nothing wrong with you....

These are words that I said to a mother this morning and I still can't believe that I have to say them.

She is four months postpartum and is overwhelmed with feelings of brokenness after an intensely traumatic birth. She is navigating new motherhood and all that goes with it. Birth, as it does, also brought to the surface woundings and wrongdoings from her own childhood. And on top of all of that she is processing an emergency cesarean that resulted in the loss of her uterus.

And she is doing it alone.

It is the paradox of my work. To feel honored that I get the privilege to witness mothers in their vulnerability and to be there for them, with an open and compassionate heart, while holding within a deep seated anger at the inadequacy and brokenness of our maternity care system.

As I left her house today my heart grieved for all of the mothers that are alone in their homes with their newborn babies, hurting in silence and believing that their traumatic birth was somehow their fault. That somehow they did something to cause such a catastrophic outcome.

Today I heard this mother say "I feel like I let my baby down," and "I don't know what I did to cause this," and "I'm worried that I'm not a good enough mother for her."

This is unacceptable. We, as a society, are failing new families. We are leaving them broken and alone with no way through to the other side. We are disabling them and as a result, disabling ourselves.

We can do better. We have to do better.

In four months I am the first person who looked this mother in the eyes and said "you didn't do anything wrong." And she stared back at me, her eyes searching my face, her heart soaking in those words. As she continued to tell her story she said, "I knew there was something wrong but they wouldn't listen to me. They kept telling me everything was fine and my baby was fine. But I knew that wasn't true."

I told her, "you knew. I'm sorry that nobody listened to you. I'm sorry that you were alone in your knowing."

And you know what? That is the place that I work with the most in postpartum integration sessions. The place where the mother *intuitively knew* what was needed but was ignored and abandoned. Almost always, that is the primary rupture.

Because the modern maternity care model operates in a top down way, where the physician is an external authority figure and the mother is meant to obey, many times births end in a traumatic way because the information that lives within the mother is dismissed and overridden in favor of a technocratic model that sees the body as a machine and birth as a thing to be dominated and contained.

And if that isn't bad enough...

We have completely severed the connection of body/mind/spirit from birth and disregard anything that falls outside of the window of biological understanding. Mothers are pushed through and spat out on the other side, left feeling fragmented and broken even though they tried...

They tried so hard to do it right. To follow the wisdom of their body. To erect their inner knowing and allow it to lead them. They tried to find God in their process, but around every bend there was always The Man telling them to be silent and to let the technocracy win.

How to you compete with that? A single being facing an entity that demands your submission?

The only choice is to self-abandon.

I am faced with this everyday. Staring the destruction and desecration of the sacred square in the face.

And the only thing I can do is look in the eyes of each mother and say, "I see you."

It is a tragedy, truly. And something must be done. Women and children are the backbone of society, if they're broken, then I believe that life as we know it is done.

If you know a mother who has recently given birth, please bring her a meal today and let her know she is not alone.

If we wish to change this tide, we must all rise, together, and recenter The Mother instead of The Man.

Art: Mother Embrace by Kate Ahn

07/02/2022

Hello! 👋 It's been a long while since I posted here. Many of you probably started following me as 'Rebecca Rambo-Birthkeeper' back when I began writing about the premature birth of my 4th child. I've birthed again since then, and as you might expect, that birth was also powerful and a story worth sharing (as all births are).

Yesterday I sat at this seat and had a very powerful interview with for her podcast, Speaking Light Into Abortion.

I told the story of the death and birth of my baby, Arrow Sage. Our story together was a meant to be journey of intentional pregnancy release and it was a journey that catapulted me into a space of deep self-reclamation.

I haven’t spoken about it yet, because it was so precious and tender. I have been sitting with the medicine of that birth for over 2 years, and with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, I felt that now is the right time to share this wisdom.

Abortion is birth. And birth is always sacred. When we birth, we are offered an opportunity for transformation.

The episode will be released on Tuesday and I hope that our story reaches the hearts of those who need it most in this strange and unsettling time.
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You'll notice that the name of this page has changed. It is my intention here to begin sharing inquiries and explorations around the ideas of supporting all birthing families well and what it actually means to meet the journey of birth with compassion. How can we, as a collective, reduce harm and access the inherent transformative nature of birth?
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I have two other podcast interviews I've done in recent months that I will link in the comments below! Please check them out and share your thoughts. It is the conversations we have that spark the changes we all desire!

08/19/2021

Consent actually matters
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Touching someone’s body, but especially sensitive bits like genitalia, without explicit consent is not within a practitioners scope of practice ever. It literally does not matter what kind of letters are behind your name or what role you have in your clients/patients experience or why they’ve come to see you.

Asking for permission when someone is already in a position of vulnerability does NOT equal consent. Telling someone they need to comply with something because of policy is not consent. Leading the questions with love by saying things such as “for the benefit of your baby we’d like to do a vaginal exam. Is that okay?” is also NOT consent.

In birth gaining full consent for a vaginal exam during birth, for example, sounds like having discussions about vaginal exams (risks, benefits, when they may be of use to the laboring person etc) with the client fully clothed, well before the onset of labor, in a place where they feel safe and respected. You have a full discussion, you ask about their concerns and overall feelings about vaginal exams, offering ideas for alternatives, explaining exactly how the exam will happen etc. Most importantly you assure them that they NEVER have to consent to a vaginal exam and that the choice is FULLY theirs, regardless of why you are wanting to do one.

Then, if it seems like a vaginal exam may be useful in labor you must first return to those initial conversations, be fully transparent, leave room for TRUE choice, etc before ever “gloving up”. You must gain a full “yes, I want you to do a vaginal exam.” You May even need to pose the question, offer the information, answer questions, and then leave the room while they make their decision.

If they consent, you again describe the process in detail. Then you ask again, “are you ready for me to begin? I will start by putting my gloves on.” Then you announce EACH AND EVERY STEP prior to doing it. You go slow. You gain consent over and over. “My fingers are at your opening. Are you ready for me to put them inside?? Yes, ok. Now they are inside and I am reaching to feel your cervix and your baby’s head. Does this still feel okay? You can tell me to stop at any time?” You notice their breathing. You watch their body for signs of tension. You attune to their experience and you are always, always willing to stop at the first moment of consent being withdrawn.

You also talk to the baby!! You let them know who you are, what you’re doing entering their body (because moms body is their body too), you ask them for consent, you let them know when you’ve made contact with them too... “hi baby, I feel your head. You’re doing such a great job. I’d like to see what position you’re birthing yourself in. I’m checking in to see how your moms body is opening and if there’s anything I need to be aware of. Do you need me to know anything baby?”

Afterwards you stay with them. You stay in the space. You offer a hand on their hand. You take breaths and feel your own body. You ask them if they’d like to know what you felt. You thank them for consenting to gathering this information from their body.

Why is this not common practice?

WE CAN DO BETTER!! We HAVE to do better!!

05/29/2021

Parents are the original baby monitors.

We are designed keep our infants close. Even while we sleep, our bodies monitor and nurture our young. Our nearness promotes bonding, facilitates brain development, and regulates the nervous system. Infants are incapable of surviving without us, so the need to be close is also a hard-wired safety mechanism.

Humans are born earlier in their gestation than other mammals. We enter the world far less developed and far more helpless. A newborn calf can stand up within the first 2 hours after birth...human babies can’t even hold their own heads up until around 3 or 4 months old.

And if we look to our closest cousins, chimpanzees, for comparison…a human baby would need a 18-21 month gestation, rather than our usual 9-10, in order to be born at a comparable cognitive and neurological stage of development to that of a newborn chimpanzee. So our young toddlers aren’t even ready to cut the cord by chimp standards…

So, once earthside, we continue our gestation with the help of our parents. We stay rooted to our parents so that our bodies and minds may continue developing, in constant communication with theirs.

That is why its so troubling when our culture’s separation-focused narrative leads us to start second-guessing the value of proximity. It seems like we get our free pass for the newborn phase, but then after that there’s a bit of distaste for cosleeping or carrying or generally embracing high needs for closeness. I hope we can start to change that.

I hope that we can view proximity as something to honour as much as we can, rather than something to extinguish as early as possible.

That, instead of being considered a kind of lagging-behind or an alt parenting style, we can celebrate the magic that it is...

That we can reconnect with our mammalian nature, and, rather than feeling sheepish about these natural things we do, we can choose instead to roar with pride about them, as our little cubs roar too, right by our sides.

Words: https://instagram.com/realkindparent?utm_medium=copy_link
Image: https://instagram.com/moonandcheeze?utm_medium=copy_link
Shared from Instagram: https://instagram.com/realkindparent?utm_medium=copy_link

05/28/2021

Dear Maternity Care Providers Who Work in a Hospital: ________________________________________________

Stop being critical of, condescending to, and judgmental towards people who come into your hospital to receive care after transferring from a home birthing environment. You’re not convincing anybody that hospital birth is the best choice by being hostile and terrible to the people who show up in an emergent situation from a home birth. What you’re doing is you’re teaching people that it’s not safe to seek care.

Your inability to receive home birth transfers with compassion and integrity is reflective of your unwillingness to practice humanity-centered and trauma-informed care. You’re taking a person who is probably at the cliff’s edge of the most traumatic and vulnerable experience of their life, and you’re kicking them when they’re down.

You’re not changing anything, you’re making home birth more dangerous. People aren’t going to stop birthing at home because the doctor, upon transfer, shamed them for making the choice to birth outside of the system. No, what they’re going to do is stop seeking care.

Stop treating the people who show up from home births as train wrecks. They’re not train wrecks, they’re responsible. Birth happens anywhere. And everywhere. Everybody deserves the opportunity to choose how they would like to enter in to parenthood; how they would like to birth.

Now that choice may not reflect your professional opinion or what you would choose for yourself. But medicine has no place for personal opinions and personal views to influence the care you provide. The hippocratic oath eludes to the idea of “do no harm” over its many paragraphs outlining morality in medicine.

That doesn’t just mean do no harm physically, to someone’s sick, injured, or dying body. No, people are far more complex than bodies. Do no harm means: do no harm to their psyche, their spirit, their emotional experience. Birth is meant to be a rite of passage, a critical juncture between ‘life before’ and ‘life after.’ A point of profound transformation, regardless of how they arrive at the gateway. Birth is sacred and holy, in all of the messy ways it shows up.

It doesn’t quite matter what circumstances led to the transfer, it doesn’t really matter what happened until the point they show up at your emergency room or on your maternity care floor. What matters is how you’re receiving them. What matters is that you’re able to give them compassionate, kind, competent care despite how they’ve chosen to give birth.

When you do anything less that that, you’re bullying. Stop it. There’s no place for bullies in medicine.

As someone who has supported many families in their journey of birthing at home, the one thing I can tell you is that those families care deeply about the safety and well-being of their child. They are willing to go completely against status quo, to be the lone wolf, the outcast in order to achieve and offer their child the birth experience that they think is best.

Home birthers aren’t crazy. Home birthers aren’t irresponsible. Home birthers aren’t science deniers, or new age lunatics. Home birthers are people. People that you agreed to support, care for, and protect when you set foot on this path.

When you’re compounding their trauma by indulging in your own ego-centered perspective on how they’re chosen to live their life and birth their children you’re not serving anyone, you’re causing harm.

Please, stop it, now!

When somebody walks into your hospital or arrives in an ambulance in a state of crisis after birthing or attempting to birth their child at home, look upon them with a warm, open heart and kindness in your eyes, and help them navigate through the trickiest waters they’ve ever found themselves swimming, or nearly drowning, in. See them to the other side.

And if you can’t do that, choose to practice medicine on another floor. Or take a sabbatical and sit with the people. Listen to their stories. Find your humanity, and then return to serving with a humbled heart.

(Photo: an exhausted mom (me) who transferred to birth at the hospital after receiving alternative care her whole pregnancy. This is the face of a mother in a shock and trauma response, trying to care for her premature infant, while being faced with intense hostility from hospital staff including blatant bullying, neglectful care, and a report to the State Child Protective Services)

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The Power of Birth

I support women who are birthing powerfully and with intention. Women who view birth as so much more than a physical experience. Women who sense, with wonder, the ways that giving birth will alter their psychic, emotional, and spiritual bodies. Women that understand, or maybe have an inkling, that their body is a gateway, for all of the power in the Universe to flow. I believe it is our duty as women to acknowledge and remember that this is an ancient and sacred way of birthing. Those that choose to birth in this way do so as the most profound and powerful act of resistance in society that is largely disconnected from it’s wholeness. By accepting total responsibility for their experience they see pregnancy and birth as an invitation into spiritual transformation and rebirth, for themselves and their child, and have chosen to whole heartedly accept that invitation! This is less about where we give birth, and more about how we do it.

As women are remembering the power of creation that is innate and unique to them, they are beginning to desire support that acknowledges their power and holds space for their process. Support that gently guides with a steady light and warm hand. In addition to a decade of education in pregnancy and birth, I offer women spiritual support through many modalities including yoga therapy, reiki, somatic trauma processing, and more. As a mother of four, I bring with me the wisdom of a my own transformation into motherhood as well as the power of all of the women I have supported through pregnancy, birthing, and postpartum. It is an honor to be initiated into the sacred act of serving as a Birth Keeper in this lifetime. I am grateful for the opportunity to support you!