Peace, Love & Babies Doula Care

27/08/2024

One of the first birth books I read was Ina May’s Spiritual Midwifery - I found it inspiring and affirming 🥰 congratulations Ina May Gaskin on your contributions to the world of birth and motherhood

28/03/2024

Your baby’s own blood is so important!

07/03/2024

Happy IBCLC day!

16/08/2023

26/06/2023

As a HG mama I was so tired of hearing folks tell me it would pass after the first trimester, and to just eat crackers and ginger. If your morning sickness is severe and not improving it may be HG and there are meds available that can help improve things. It’s worth noting that HG can be really dangerous and appropriate care is important ❤️

15/05/2023

Delayed cord clamping has benefits even (especially?) for bubs requiring resus ❤️

1. In a randomized trial including late preterm and term infants resuscitated with positive pressure ventilation (PPV) at birth, expanded Apgar score at 5 minutes was significantly higher in infants resuscitated with an intact cord than those who had immediate cord clamping. 2. Delayed cord clamping...

07/05/2023

Taking a moment to send love, and holding all bereaved mothers in my heart today

💜Today is Bereaved Mother's Day💜

We use this day to pause and recognise the incredible strength and resilience of bereaved mothers and their families everywhere. On this special day, we acknowledge the unique journey they have walked while continuing to show love and unwavering courage.

Today is a reminder that your motherhood is forever, even if your child is physically absent. Your love is eternal, and your impact on the world is immeasurable.

We asked bereaved mothers to share some of the unique ways they choose to remember their loved ones.

"We visit the memorial leaf plaque we had laid in memory of our baby we lost to miscarriage at the Children’s Memorial Garden at West Terrace Cemetery in Adelaide and light the special candle for our Little One. We take lavender from our garden and lay it on the plaque and take rosemary from the cemetery and place it in the candle holder." - Meagan S.

"I light a candle for both my boys. On their birthdays, I normally make a donation to a charity of choice or cause in their name/memory." - Melanie P.

"We treat bereaved mother's day like the other mothers day. Having one living child, we celebrate both days for both boys like bereaved father's day also. We just purchased a teddy that we can put our little Ollie's ashes in, go out for a lunch, new adventure or picnic, have a special dinner and dessert. We light his candle at dinner time (if at home or when we get back) so he knows we're there 🤍 Sending so much love to all the other bereaved mum's out there! You're still a mum whether your baby/ies are in your arms or not ❤️ ###" - Mel B.

We thank all those who shared their heart warming stories with us in our effort to raise awareness for this special day.

23/04/2023

Have you ever seen a fetal scalp electrode close up?

31/03/2023

Allow babies the time and space they need to make the cardinal movements required to birth their shoulders.
Peace on earth begins with birth ❤️

If you work in a hospital as a midwife or obstetrician, you may be expected to ‘get the baby out’ within 60 seconds of the birth of the head. There can be an expectation that the baby be born within the space of one contraction.

I have personally been mentored by private midwives and have only watched physiological births at home to learn how to sit with birth, so for a long time I assumed that everyone just waited for the second contraction for the shoulders to be born… turns out, many midwives and obstetricians will put their hands on the babies head to try and put traction/pressure on the babies head to bring the shoulders out within the same contraction.

One of the concerns is that if the shoulders aren’t born soon after the head, that they must be stuck and that the baby is experiencing a shoulder dystocia…but that can’t be true, because most of the births I attend follow a two-step method where we just wait for the second contraction for the shoulders and all those babies didn’t have a shoulder dystocia

There is research on this (of course) and Zhang et al in 2017 did a randomised controlled clinical trial to compare a one-step method with a two-step method.

The control group had the one-step method where the clinician used their hands to speed up the birth of the shoulders, the study group had a two-step approach where the clinician just allowed the baby to be born over 2 contractions

The two-step group had ZERO incidence of shoulder dystocia and no increase in neonatal asphyxia compared to the one-step group. The one step group had 4 shoulder dystocia incidents.

The two-step approach allows physiological birth to unfold, acknowledges the cardinal movements of the baby through the pelvis and allows the time for the shoulders to get into position before they are born to allow for a less complicated birth.

By speeding up and trying to manually manipulate the baby out if it’s mother we interrupt the babies manoeuvres through the pelvis and potentially create incidences of shoulder dystocia.

21/03/2023

Take ultrasound weight predictions with a grain of salt

Did you hear the latest episode of the great birth rebellion podcast on ‘small babies, big babies’ where myself and discussed the challenges of growth scans for clinical decision making?

We shared from the research (which you can access if you are on the podcast mailing list) that ultrasounds to assess the size of your baby are ‘accurate’ 70% of the time, but the acceptable ‘accuracy’ and margin of error is +/- 10%…

So, if they tell you your baby is 4000gms it could actually be 4400gms or 3600gms… and that is the accepted margin of error on growth scans. The other 30% of the time, they are even less accurate.

The clincher is if you choose to be induced or have a cesarean section because of the suspected size of your baby, you won’t know how accurate your scan was until your baby is out.

The 2023 Cochrane review on induction of labour for suspected macrosomic (large) babies says that because of the inaccurate nature of growth ultrasounds, we shouldn’t be using them to make decisions about induction for suspected large babies… because, doesn’t matter how good we think we are, we are still too crap at determining foetal size with ultrasound to start using it as a tool to recommend induction.

Just listen to the episode.