Yvette The Doula

06/06/2023

Hello mommas, this Birth Doula has Availability!!!

03/01/2023

This. Visiting new parents, here are some rules.

If you're visiting a new mama and baby, there are a few things that you need to understand.

🤰🏼Join our Calm Mama Society Membership! It's a safe mama community filled with pregnant and postpartum mamas with free workshops, downloads, weekly hangouts, support, and friendship. Link in bio for to join ⭐️⭐️⁠

That mama just gave birth and is healing. She's tired, sore, and possibly overwhelmed.

That baby just entered a new world full of loud sounds, smells, and lights that they're not used to.

When going to visit, that mama should be your priority. Tend to her, help her, and offer encouragement and support. She needs to know that she isn't alone in this new journey.

Offer to help with:

➡️ Tidying up the house

➡️ Wash bottle or pump parts

➡️ Bring over a meal or cook her a meal (be sure to clean up after yourself too)

➡️ Do some laundry

➡️ Play with any other kids in the house, and bring them a gift too (they're also adjusting)

➡️ Offer to run some errands that she needs to be done

➡️ Hold the baby so she can shower

➡️ Offer to let her take a nap while you take care of the baby (and other kids)

➡️ ASK HER WHAT SHE NEEDS HELP WITH

Whatever you do, DO NOT:

❌ Expect her to entertain you

❌ Expect her to make you a meal

❌ Expect her to cater to you

❌ Stay too long

❌ Criticize how she's doing something

New mamas need all the help they can get, and you can make a huge difference in her life by understanding what she needs - both emotionally and physically. Show up with open arms, an open heart, and kindness. She'll always appreciate that more than anything else.

What should be added to this list?

02/24/2023

Laboring down 💕

02/24/2023

💖

Patience!
I know - it is so difficult when you feel like you have been pregnant for at least 2 years!
We find out that we are pregnant now so early that it makes it feel like such a long time. It also gets really difficult towards the end because you know that the end is near you just do not know when!
🤰But what we know is that mother and baby work together on this!
👶Baby knows when they are ready and baby will let you know by sending chemical messages to your brain to tell you it is time!
Don't work against your baby - even when you are looking at 'natural' ways to go into labour, it is still interfering with that crucial communication between you and your baby.
When you try to pick an unripe fruit you have to work hard to make it come from the branch - if you pick a ripe fruit it comes away easily in your hand.
✨Patience!

02/17/2023

02/11/2023

Shhhh....
Sometimes in labour you need the calm, the quiet, the privacy that can only be found when you go inside of yourself.
There is a time for movement, a time for massage, a time for laughter, a time for eating, drinking, talking .....but then there is a time for just YOU.
YOU and your baby...💗

Shhhh....just go inside and listen to that inner voice....
Sometimes in labour you need the calm, the quiet, the privacy that can only be found when you go inside of yourself.
There is a time for movement, a time for massage, a time for laughter, a time for eating, drinking, talking .....but then there is a time for just YOU.
YOU and your baby...
Labour is the hardest work you will ever do and you will need to rest and be at peace with the moment.
A good care provider, whether they are a midwife, a doula or an obstetrician knows when to just leave things be.
When you need to be alone and at one with your baby - you will need confidence in listening to that inner voice when it tells you to just STOP, BREATHE and take time to gather your strength for what is to come......the birth of your baby ❤️
📸

07/04/2022

💗💗

Did you know.....
New babies have a lot going on in the first hour of life.
Here’s a brand new baby who’s just been born in the water.
It doesn’t look like much is happening.
But during this first hour of life a healthy term baby will....
Learn to breathe for themselves.
Have major structural changes to their heart and circulatory system.
Learn to latch to the breast and feed as they no longer have a constant steady stream of oxygen and food coming to them via the placenta.
Might open their eyes and get their first look at the world.
Learn to regulate and maintain their own blood sugar.
P*e p**p and probably cover one or both parents with it.
The best way to help a new baby transition through all these new changes?
Do absolutely nothing, hold them in skin to skin contact and let them take their time.
If you and your new baby are able to, give them the gift of doing absolutely nothing but holding onto them for that first hour of life.
📷 on IG
-Reposted from Birthnow

05/23/2022

💕🫂

I Won’t Hold Your Baby

…unless you ask me to, in which case, I will snuggle and cuddle your baby as much as you want me to.

I never ask my clients if I can hold their baby. In fact, I rarely ever touch my client’s baby if I can help it. Sounds sort of like the opposite of what you might picture of a doula, right? We must all be birth crazy, baby obsessed women who just want to cover babies in kisses and love and get an emotional high from attending births?

Not this doula.

I LOVE attending births. Call me crazy, but getting those middle of the night calls is one of my favorite parts of this job. I get to listen to someone at their most vulnerable times - the excitement, the hesitation, the nervousness of the unknown. Being able to provide some comfort, reassurance and continuity of care to the people I work with is so important to me (and them!)

Rushing off in the night, quietly getting myself ready, getting in the car and heading off to their home or hospital makes me feel like I’m on a secret birth mission that nobody around me knows about. When I arrive I fall as seamlessly as I can into the rhythm of the birth and start supporting my clients in whatever way they need most.

When the baby arrives I step aside and leave room for the new parents to discover their baby. I try and grab some photos (I’m not a birth photographer though, so keep your expectations in check!) and then I only step in if my client needs me for some reason.

Why does that matter? Why won’t I ask to hold your baby? Simply because: they are yours, not mine. I want you to be able to hold your baby as close as you want, for as long as you want without anyone interrupting that time. There will be enough people coming along in the next few hours and weeks who need to take that baby out of your arms for whatever reason, and tons of friends and family who will offer help by “holding the baby”.

Instead, I want to hold you, whether that’s in my arms, in my heart or my thoughts. By supporting and “holding” you, I don’t need to hold your baby. But if you ask me to, I would LOVE to.

Written by | Bump and Glow- Montreal Doula Services
Artwork by Spirit Y Sol

03/23/2022

World doula week 💗

It's officially World Doula Week! Day 1: Doulas Make a Difference. There are so many amazing qualities that make a doula, which one do you resonate with?

Build community with others like you at Doula Con '22. Details coming soon...

03/19/2022

Approximately 1/3 of women describe their birth as traumatic. These are only those who report their experience. One of the most invalidating phrases in maternity care is "well at least you had a healthy baby." Obviously they are happy their baby is healthy. But let's not pretend that's all that matters. To use that phrase as a scapegoat to normalize obstetric violence and to further invalidate the very real feelings that come with birth trauma is absolutely unacceptable. We need to do better.

03/11/2022

This is what home birth looks like,

Midwives sitting at the table chatting, sipping coffee and water.

Your best friend sitting on the floor playing with your toddler.

Your partner holding your hand while you work with the waves that rush over you to bring your baby into this universe.

Home birth isn’t how the movies depict birth. It isn’t an agonizing mother in hospital bed. It isn’t a woman who’s left to do the work all on her own. It isn’t unfamiliar doctors and nurses ushering in & out of your hospital room.

Birth is,
Powerful.
A rite of passage.
Transforming.
Empowering.
Normal.

03/02/2022

When I was first attending births in 1984, the obstetric model was to cut the umbilical cord immediately after birth and take the baby away for evaluation and a first bath. This was based on the belief that placental blood flow would increase birth complications for babies.

Even back then, we midwives knew to do it differently - we waited until the placenta stopped pulsating - 10 or more minutes -- before clamping and cutting the cord. Baby’s did great, placentas came out readily, and all was good - even if our methods were considered silly by doctors.

Times change, science has caught up. The midwives were right. We now know that immediate cord cutting, unless there’s a medical emergency that requires it, is not recommended. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists now recommends a delay in umbilical cord clamping for at least 30–60 seconds, and the WHO recommends 2-3 minutes.

The benefits of waiting include:
❣️ Transfer to baby immunoglobulins and stem cells, essential for tissue and organ repair
❣️ Extra iron, which has been shown to prevent iron deficiency in the first year of life
❣️ Possibly reduced risk of hemorrhage and easier placental delivery for mom

While jaundice can develop from delayed cord cutting due to this influx of blood, this type of jaundice is not usually a medical problem. Baby will naturally clear this excess iron with p**ping. Your midwife or pediatrician will keep an eye on baby over the first few days to make sure it’s clearing. However, the benefits of delayed cord cutting are more beneficial for baby than the risk of this jaundice.

Unfortunately, immediate cord clamping/cutting are still common practice in hospitals. You have to let your midwife or doctor know that you want to wait, with baby tummy to tummy on you, while you do. I recommend bringing this up with your care provider in advance to ensure that they are on board to do ‘delayed cord clamping and cutting’. Get specific with exactly how long you want baby to be connected to the placenta. Unsure how to advocate for yourself? Want guidance on pregnancy, birth, and newborn care? Join the Mama Pathway for all the support you need to be in the know. https://www.facebook.com/groups/ideservebirthsupport/

📷 on Instagram