Willow Tree Wellness

02/20/2026

🤎doulas don’t judge…💨

02/19/2026

💜As your midwife, my goal is giving you the best pregnancy and birth experience I can.

02/18/2026

What affirmations actually helped you during your birth? 💜

02/13/2026

While there is a long post ahead, reading can honor their legacy. 🖤

Midwifery has deep, powerful roots in Black communities, long before modern hospitals became the primary place for childbirth.

Midwives of color are the living foundation of traditional midwifery. Long before birth moved into hospitals, Black, Indigenous, and other women of color carried generations of knowledge about pregnancy, birth, herbs, community care, and postpartum healing.
These women, often referred to as “granny midwives,” became trusted healers in their communities.

During times when Black families were denied access to hospitals or faced segregation and discrimination in medical settings, midwives provided safe, skilled, and culturally grounded care. They supported not just births, but entire families, offering prenatal guidance, postpartum healing practices, breastfeeding support, and emotional care. Their work helped sustain generations upon generations.

However, in the early 20th century, as medicine became more institutionalized, traditional midwifery was heavily regulated and often pushed out. Many Black midwives were dismissed despite their experience and the positive outcomes they achieved. This shift contributed to a loss of community-based birth knowledge and trust.

Today, there is a growing movement to reclaim and honor this legacy. Black midwives and birth workers are revitalizing community-centered care, addressing maternal health disparities, and continuing traditions rooted in dignity, advocacy, and empowerment.

Midwifery in Black communities is not a trend. it is a tradition. A history of resilience. A story of care passed down through generations.

🖤Thank you to all the black and brown women who came before us and paved the way to the midwifery model of care we have today. 🤎

02/03/2026

Due to hazardous road conditions, we will not be having Bloom & Belong tomorrow ❄️

01/31/2026

🥗🥓🍖

For decades, laboring people have been told not to eat once they arrive at the hospital. This recommendation didn’t come from evidence about labor itself. It came from anesthesia practices from the 1940s–1960s.

Back then, if a person needed emergency surgery under general anesthesia, there was a real risk of aspiration (vomiting and inhaling stomach contents). To reduce that risk, hospitals adopted a nothing-by-mouth policy. Over time, this became routine, even as anesthesia techniques improved and general anesthesia became rare in childbirth.

Yet the rule stayed.

Labor is not a short event for many women. It can last 12, 24, even 48+ hours, especially for first births or inductions.

Labor requires:
• Sustained physical effort
• Strong, coordinated uterine contractions
• Mental focus and endurance
• Glucose and electrolytes for muscle function

When someone is denied food, the body eventually runs out of available energy. Blood sugar drops. Muscles fatigue. Contractions can weaken. Labor may slow.

This often leads to:
• Increased exhaustion
• Higher pain perception
• Less effective pushing
• Increased need for interventions (pitocin, assisted delivery, cesarean)

Imagine running a marathon and being told:
“You’re only allowed ice chips.”

No fuel. No electrolytes. No calories.

Most people would collapse long before the finish line.
Yet in labor, we expect people to perform one of the most physically demanding events of their lives without nourishment, sometimes for days.

Research now shows that low-risk laboring people who eat light, easily digestible foods do not have worse outcomes and may have better stamina and satisfaction.

Many countries and birth settings now support:
• Eating to hunger
• Small, frequent snacks
• Carbohydrates for energy
• Electrolytes for hydration

So why is the rule still there?
• Hospital policy
• Fear of liability
• One-size-fits-all protocols
• Convenience, not physiology

But birth is not surgery.
And laboring people are not passive patients.

Withholding food during long labors can set women up for exhaustion, stalled labor, and the very interventions the policy claims to prevent.

Informed consent means understanding:
• Where recommendations came from
• Whether they still apply
• And how they impact your labor

Your body does real work in labor.
And real work requires fuel.

01/29/2026

Edit: We got it cleared!! Thanks to everyone who came out and helped! Downtown Medina is back open for business!

Your midwives and doulas need your help! Main Street walkways in Medina are treacherous and we have mamas and babies who need to be seen!

If anyone can get here safely, has a shovel to spare, and would like to help the local businesses of Main Street get their doors back open for our community, we’ll be meeting at 4pm today!

01/21/2026

This week we kicked off our 2026 doula apprenticeship with our first skills day. We learned about body work and comfort measures, the presence we aim to bring to a birth space, what to pack in a doula bag, and practiced responding to birth scenarios. If you are one of our clients, you will be seeing these girls around soon. We are so proud of their recent completion of their doula trainings and can't wait to watch them grow and thrive in this work! 🌱🤍

01/07/2026

Bloom & Belong is cancelled
today!

See you February 4th!
💜🌿

12/17/2025

Every birth deserves respect.
However it looks, I’ll always stand behind these incredible mamas! 💜

12/10/2025

✨things I want you to know as your doula…💜

12/05/2025

POV: you came for a prenatal visit and left with a full TED Talk from your midwife 😅✨