Tag Archives: doula

WISE WOMAN POSTPARTUM DOULA RETREAT 2024

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April 5th, 6th, and 7th 2024
Bowen Island, British Columbia, CANADA

Join us for the 1st Annual Wise Woman Postpartum Doula Retreat. Wise Woman Way of Birth will be at the Xenia Retreat Center on Bowen Island for 3 days and 2 nights, surrounded by beautiful nature, soaking up the palpable spirit of these healing grounds.

A replenishing experience for your body, mind, and spirit.
An immersive training in continued postpartum education.
A connection for the postpartum doula community.

“I have been dreaming of this retreat for almost two years now, since moving to Bowen Island. I want to bring together the community of postpartum doulas that has been building over the last few years to connect deeper in person. There are so many brilliant, fascinating women doing this work, and we can all be supporting each other to better support the families we work with. It started as this zygote of an idea to give doulas some of the skills they have been asking for and has grown into this immersive, healing, cup-filling retreat with a dream team of speakers!” Candice Johnson

Wise Woman Postpartum Doula Retreat

WISE WOMAN WAY OF BIRTH DOULA TRAININGS (2025)

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The Next Scheduled Course begins on
Saturday, January 18, 2025 at 10:00 a.m. (Pacific Time)
Cost: $675 (Canadian)

taught by Gloria Lemay

Jessica Austin, with a Doula client.

Jessica Austin, with a Doula client.

This course will give you the skills to assist women giving birth at home or in hospital. Doula services are in demand. There is a pre-reading requirement. Please email waterbirthinwoman@gmail.com for further information and to register for the course.

The course will be on Zoom and assignments and tests will be on Google Classroom.
12 Classes 2 and a half hours long. .

Course One in 2025: Saturday mornings (Pacific)

Successful students will receive Wise Woman Way of Birth Doula Training certification.

OVERVIEW OF COURSE CONTENT
Class 1: Introductions, birth “politics” and Language
Class 2: Preventing Problems before the Birth: Nutrition. Prenatal Screening
Class 3: Types of “support” in birth: Midwife, Dr, Obstetrician, Doula — what are the differences? Comparison of home and hospital choices. Assisting your client in making a clear Birth Plan for the chosen place of birth.
Class 4: Anatomy and fetal positions, introduce the concept of “pain” and normalizing birth sensations through knowing the anatomy. Introduction to the concept of breech and twins as variations of Fetal positions.
Class 5: Medical Birth Phases and the “real” phases of birth and how to recognize them.
Class 6: Breastfeeding and early days postpartum and newborn care / Doula Role in these.
Class 7: Common Interventions and the Intervention Cascade. (Fetal monitoring, ultrasound, epidurals, Caesarean, vacuum, forceps, etc.)
Class 8: Preventing Birth Derailment in common scenarios and special situations: Induction for Postdates, augmenting a “slow” birth, a diagnosis of Low or High Amniotic Fluid Levels, Meconium, premature release of the membranes, vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC).
Class 9: “Informed Choice”: what it *really* means and how to use it as a tool for your client vs a tool for enabling the institutional model of birth, more work on creating a Birth Plan with a client
Class 10: Business Basics: Finances, record keeping, professional practices, client confidentiality, and effective advertising. Structuring a plan for working with clients from interview through to completion.
Class 11: Comfort Measures, supporting Long Births, Helpful things to say, Water Birth.
Class 12: Staying calm when the baby comes: Miscarriage, Abortion, and Stillbirth. How to support people through the hard things in birth work.

Added on May 22, 2024 From Gloria, I am training a great group of women to be birth doulas currently. It’s quite amazing to see them creating alliances and support structures from taking an online course. One of them voiced in the classroom that she thought the class would be about rubbing backs and saying comforting words to birthing women. Instead of that, we have to prepare the students for the “sysem” and how to navigate it to protect their clients from harm. This is my response to her: Quote: “Gloria Lemay May 19”
Oh, I wish so much that we could teach a nice course on how you should all be team players, think positive, reframe every terrible experience into a good memory for your client, be liked, be appreciated and live happily within a specific “scope” of practice. There are courses that try to “sell” that model of being a doula. We’re a little different. We name “Obstetric Violence” , “Medical Rape” and “Birth Trauma”. The numbers don’t lie. When 40% of our sisters, cousins, aunts, friends and associates are having their bellies cut open with a knife and their babies being dragged out drugged and dazed, we just can’t “sell” a denial of the facts. Medical birth is assaulting women.
All of your comments above are so important. Thank you for taking the time to read/watch the materials. I know they are disturbing. We need every one of you in the birth advocate business. It is scary and intimidating at times. That’s okay. You’re going to learn and experience things that will help you be better consumers of medical care to protect yourself and your family. You’re going to have moments of such pride and accomplishment when you know you’ve made a difference. You’re going to have times when you want to quit and get a nice job at a supermarket—-don’t do it! The secret agenda I have for each and every one of you is that eventually you’ll all be the woman in your community who is the “Go To, Birth Woman”. People do recognize courage and persistence.”
Contact Gloria Lemay at waterbirthinwoman@gmail.com

Is the baby breech?

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The baby can be breech or head down throughout the pregnancy and it’s of no real concern until 34 weeks gestation. At that point, the baby’s head is big enough and firm enough that it can be palpated and a reasonably good assessment can be made by a clinician. This is also the point in the pregnancy where it makes sense to take steps to encourage the breech baby (3% of all pregnancies) to turn to head down through Webster technique (chiropractic), knee/chest position, or external cephalic version by an obstetrician.

For birth workers, these are some of the things I’ve observed about pregnant women carrying the baby in a breech position. They are not 100% diagnostic but can alert you to look closer for breech position. If the only thing that is concerning in the final weeks of pregnancy is “What position is this baby in?”, it’s possible to have a “one swipe” ultrasound. An ultrasound technician can do a very brief scan and see where the baby’s spine, head and bum are. There’s no need to do a time consuming (prolonged ultrasound exposure) scan just for position. If the baby is breech, you’ll want to know where the placenta is located as well. If the baby is head down, the scan can stop and the parents can go celebrate.

These are some signs that the baby could be breech at 34 weeks and beyond:

1 heart tones heard with fetoscope (not doppler) in upper segment (belly button level or higher).
2. Woman has feeling of a hard ball in her ribcage. Woman tends to squirm and press down on the top of her uterus when sitting.
3 head is slightly firmer than the bum on palpation after 35 weeks gestation age.
4. Abdomen has a more tight/taut sausage shape/quality than the usual round/squishy orange shape/quality.
5. Where are the baby hiccups felt? If high (woman’s belly button region), breech is suspected.
6. If the woman has had a previous breech birth, check carefully because a fibroid or a bicornate uterus (or other unusual anatomy) may predispose to carrying all her babies breech. (One woman I have worked with had 7 breech births. She had 2 uterii.)

I must admit that the best breech births that I have attended are the ones that were NOT diagnosed in advance. Women who have a surprise breech are spared all the worry, over-testing, over-lecturing and general misery that diagnosis of breech can bring.

Please let me know in the comments if you have any other tips or techniques for spotting those little beings who want to back into life. Thanks Gloria

HOW BIRTH STORIES GET JUMBLED

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I wanted to share this memory with you, Ted. I don’t know if you remember this incident but I’ve told it to so many people and it always makes me laugh so I thought you might enjoy this trip down memory lane.

Many years ago, when we both had young kids and you were married to Karen, I bumped into you in the parking lot of the “7-11” on West Fourth Ave. We exchanged small talk for a while and, all of a sudden, you got a strange look on your face and blurted out the following, unforgettable (to me) sentence: “Gloria, is it true you were a topless dancer in China?” I couldn’t fathom how that thought could ever enter someone’s head. I’ve been accused of many things in my life but that was pretty far-fetched—I had never been to the Orient, I had never been to the local nude beach, none of what you said made any sense at all. But, somewhere in there, I started thinking “How could this husband of another birth attendant have gotten this idea in his head?”

Then, I remembered a birth that I had called Karen out to one evening. It was the second vaginal birth for the woman. When Karen arrived at the home, I went through the woman’s chart with her. The only surgery the birthing woman had ever had was a breast augmentation. She was a Caucasian woman who was married to a Japanese man. I explained to Karen that the couple had met in Japan and the first child had been born in a Japanese hospital, completely natural birth. The woman had been in Japan because she had taken a job as a hostess in a nightclub in Japan. japanese fan

Now, they were living in Vancouver and having their second child. The baby was born just after midnight and I sent Karen home soon after.

I’m guessing that what happened is that she crawled into bed with you, Ted, and you must have asked her “how did the birth go?” There wasn’t much to tell except that bit about her previous breast augmentation surgery so perhaps Karen told you about that. Somehow, in your sleepy state, that got changed into “Gloria Lemay was a topless dancer in China”.

Once I had retraced the strange pathway of that statement, I said to you: “You know, Ted, that’s not true about me BUT it’s way more interesting than my real life. Will you, please, spread that rumour about me!”

Thanks for the special moments and laughs that knowing you has added to my life. I love you and your dear family.

LITTLE THINGS MEAN A LOT

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I wanted to write this story down because it is one I can’t forget.

I was walking back to my car after a late night downtown meeting and I was accompanied by Peter and Molly, old friends. Molly was someone I really admired and she had two young children. As we were walking along together, Molly said: “Gloria, I don’t think I’ve ever told you what an incredible difference you made to me.” My ears perked right up, I love to be acknowledged, but I couldn’t remember anything special that I had done for Molly.

She said, “Remember that day we bumped into each other on the street when I was hugely pregnant with Caroline, my second daughter? We hadn’t seen much of each other during my pregnancy and I was working with two registered midwives and planning a homebirth.End of Pregnancy

My mother had come out from Eastern Canada to help the family at the end of my pregnancy and it seemed to be taking forever for the baby to come. I was worried that my mom might be really scared to see me birthing and I had a feeling she didn’t like the idea that, this time, I would have the baby at home. I didn’t even want to talk to her about the idea I had of having a waterbirth. Everything else about the birth was going smoothly but I had this nagging fear about my mom’s reactions. Well, Gloria, you listened to everything I said and then you said “Oh, do you know what? I have the most amazing video of waterbirth that you just have to watch. Everyone who sees it has a lovely smooth birth, you’re going to love it”. (The video was Barbara Harper’s “Birth Into Being”). You went to your car trunk and presented me with the vhs tape. I took it home and we watched it that evening. My mom watched it with us and said at the end “Why don’t you get one of those water tubs and do it that way, Molly!” All my worries were gone and the next morning my birth process started. The birth was everything we wanted. Afterwards my Mom said “Honey, that is the most beautiful thing that has ever happened in my whole life. I’m so glad I came out to Vancouver and got here on time to be present to the miracle.”
My Mom returned home to Eastern Canada. She was a widow and she liked to live in her own home alone. A few months after Caroline was born, we got the terrible news that my mother had taken a fall down a flight of stairs and she died. The grief was terrible. Amidst all the grieving I had this sense of peace that my Mom had been present to a miracle and that we had shared a profound experience. I don’t know if it would have unfolded that way if you hadn’t run to your car and lent us that video.”

Only two remain undilated.


Only two remain undilated.

Molly (not her real name) only told me this story when the baby in this story was about 12 years old. You never know what the ripples in the pond of your actions might be. Love Gloria

A Doula’s Experience with Breech

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After a birth, it helps to get a perspective on what could have/ should have/ might have been different in order to learn and grow. Every birth story is different. Gloria

A DOULA WRITES:
The family had a super healthy (first) pregnancy, with opportunities
galore; access to acupuncture, chiropractics, yoga, watsu, massage,
walking, biking, good rest and healthy food (they are both vegan and
eat really well). They chose not to have any ultra sounds and had
her first internal exam at 40 weeks, at her request. She was quite
anxious about having internal exams, learned that it is possible to go
through pregnancy and birth without any fingers up her vagina and
decided that would be best for her. She asked for the exam at 40 weeks
because she felt it would be better to have a ‘practice’ exam in a non
labour situation to see what it would be like just in case she wanted
to have one in labour.

Throughout her pregnancy her various health care professionals
palpated her belly and were sure the head was down. I don’t touch
bellies, I just pay attention to how women are carrying and moving and
what they are saying, and it seemed like a vertex presentation to me
as well. At 39 weeks, her chiropractor and her midwives noticed a
difference, but figured maybe the head was engaged. On her due date
she had an appointment with one of her midwives, who is quite new to
midwifery and she basically freaked out from feeling what she thought
were hands presenting and told the family they must go for an ultra
sound the following morning at 8am. The family was left quite worried.
I asked what she felt about the baby’s position. She said she had been
feeling flutters down below, and figured it was simply mild
contractions. I also asked if she was feeling pressure up in her ribs,
or if she was pushing down on her belly in discomfort, and she said
she had been feeling that way all week. I told her not to worry and
offered to join her for the ultra sound in the am.

Later that night I received a call that labour had started, she had
been contracting since her midwife appointment, but thought it was due
to the internal exam. The contractions were building, so she called
the midwives and they told her to go straight to the hospital for an
ultra sound and one of the midwives would meet them there. The ultra
sound indicated baby was breech and the OB on call was one of the only
in the city who was open to vaginal breech births, although he clearly
stated he was not interested in any marathons and she would have 6
hours to labour (no pressure!) The midwife assured them he was good at
what he does, but he was known to have no bedside manner. That was
pretty clear, but they didn’t care.

At this point their midwife said they could go home to grab their
stuff and take a pause. She was well aware that this was a total game
change from their water birth at home plan, so taking a moment at home
seemed an important part of their birth experience. They called to
let me know the baby was in fact in a breech presentation and that
they were heading home to get their stuff. I was pleasantly surprised
they were encouraged to go home, and told them to keep me posted and
take their time. I said I would meet them back at the hospital when
they returned.

We met at the hospital at 9:45. The midwife did a very gentle and slow
internal exam and found her cervix was 4 cm and stretchy. They had her
on the monitors after that. I asked if she could be on hands and
knees, but they couldn’t get the heart rate as clear, so that was
ruled out. She was laying on her side and after 10 minutes on the
monitor we heard major dips in the heart rate over and over, tried
getting her on her other side and baby was still dipping quite a bit.
The midwife was concerned of a cord prolapse, so the nurse came in and
did a very different internal exam, got right in there fast and
vigorously and felt bulging membranes and what she thought was a cord.
Suddenly two nurses had their hands inside of her, it was terrible.
They said they were trying to push the baby up off of the cord.
breech presentations

You can imagine how intense this was for the mother to be. The room
filled with nurses and it was announced that she would have an
emergency cesarean birth. They wouldn’t let her partner go with her,
this was also terrible. The midwife wouldn’t take no for an answer and
got her scrubs on to accompany her. I stayed with her partner. He was
a mess. We found the only nurse on the floor and asked if she could
keep us updated and I asked if there was any way her partner could go
in. They were waiting for the doctor to come (this whole time with the
nurses hands inside of her…) the doctor would do one more check to
make sure the cesarean was necessary. The nurse grabbed scrubs for the father
and he got changed, but just as he was going to go in the doctor
arrived.

I later found out instead of determining whether a cesarean was
necessary, he yelled at the midwife for having let them go home. One
of the nurses spoke up and suggested they instead focus on the task
at hand and he determined the cord was not presenting, but a foot was,
and her cervix was 8cm dilated. They went ahead and gave her general
and she heard the OB yelling at her midwife as she went under. Her
partner and I waited in the hallway, he made a comment that being the
dad waiting in the hallway while his baby was born felt like we time
warped to the 1950’s.

Baby was born at 10:45pm and dad held him for the first time in the
hallway at 11:10 pm. Apgars 8 & 9, and he was 5lbs 11 oz.

Mom and baby were moved to the recovery room and dad right away took
off his shirt and gave baby skin to skin cuddles until mom was ready.
At 12:45am the nurse said baby’s sugar was low and suggested formula
or glucose water. I asked mom if she was ready to try breastfeeding or
if she wanted me to get on the phone and call her friend who had
offered expressed breast milk if they needed. The nurses were outraged at this
suggestion, said they couldn’t allow it and so she did her best to
try breastfeeding. An hour later they did the sugar test again and it
was way up. The midwife and nurse were both in disbelief (the sugar
level raised from 1.9 to 3.7 in one hour!) The midwife commented how
interesting it was that they had no trouble believing the low number.
I told them it must have been the skin to skin contact with mom and
some colostrum that did the trick. Once they were settled and resting, I
drove home with their placenta and made them some quick prints and a
smoothie. They were happy to have had some of their birth wishes
granted.

Today the family is doing quite well. They are breastfeeding, resting,
eating well, have lots of support and are processing their unexpected birth
experience a little bit each day.

QUESTIONS:
– Could we have avoided those low decels if she could have been up on
her hands and knees?
– What happened when that nurse felt bulging membranes? Did she cause the membranes to release?
Or is it possible to feel a prolapsed cord through the bag?
– Could a baby with apgars 8 & 9 have been in such distress moments
before? (or was it that they were worried baby couldn’t handle two
more centimeters as well as pushing?)
– Was this the only way it could have happened? In general it felt to
me like everything happened as it had to, except those few questions
above that leave me feeling a bit curious.

I have never attended a cesarean birth (I have been a doula for four years).

Any way in which we can learn together from this story would be great.
Comments and feedback are very welcome.

Ruby

Gloria’s thoughts

    Dear Ruby, It’s getting to be hopeless to have a primip give birth vaginally to a breech.
    You must be traumatized/grieving about all this. Thank goodness you were able to give them some measure of getting their wishes met.:

    When the adrenalin gets going at a breech birth, they basically find reasons to head to the surgical setting. The cord wasn’t causing problems so, in hindsight, the heart tones were fine.

    Don’t know what the nurse doing the exam was intending but I would hope she was being careful NOT to rupture that membrane with a breech. Did she break the water bag? You would have seen amniotic fluid with clear poop coming out of the woman’s vulva after that exam if the membranes released.FOOTLING BREECH

    As far as diagnosing a prolapsed cord through the membranes with a footling breech, it might be possible because the bag is thin but it’s highly unlikely and, we know in this case (again, good hindsight), it wasn’t there.

    Apgars of 8 and 9 indicate a healthy, well grown term baby (again, golden hindsight). We do know that monitoring increases the risk of cesareans without any evidence that it is helpful in improving health.

    From what that dr with no bedside manner said, the woman wasn’t going to be given much of a chance to give birth vaginally. Since she hadn’t had previous uterine surgery, it would have been nice if someone with the skill to do a cephalic version had been there when she was first at the hospital. The baby presenting by the feet is the easiest to turn, especially if the baby is small and it’s early in the birth process. To be fair, a first birth with feet presenting is not a good vaginal birth risk to take. Luckily it is a rare situation to have so the numbers should be very low.
    footbreech

    If the caregiver is palpating bellies and listening with a fetoscope (instead of doppler) in the prenatal period, the caregiver should be picking up when it’s breech at 36 weeks gestation (if in doubt, the woman can have a one-swipe quickie ultrasound to double-check). At that point, if it’s discovered, there’s time/space to get baby turned to head down. As I said, a footling breech is easiest to get turned. Frank breech is a more optimal position for safe vaginal birth of breech but not for turning baby to cephalic. Querying rib pain, listening in the 4 quadrants with a regular fetoscope (and finding the true fetal heartbeat low in the pregnant belly) and observing the shape of the pregnant belly are your best tools for early diagnosis.
    Thanks for being there for this family. Gloria

CHARGES AGAINST BIRTH ATTENDANT, LISA KUSCH

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Lisa Kusch Case in Saskatchewan, Canada

When a birth worker is charged with an offense in Canada, she receives legal advice not to discuss the case and not to speak with the clients involved. This makes things very difficult because she must raise funds to cover expensive legal bills and she can’t campaign on her own because of these restrictions.
I have asked for facts from different sources and submit the following information for those who are helping with the funding and care about my friend, Lisa Kusch.

Lisa in 2015

Lisa in 2015


In October 2016 Lisa was charged, as follows:
“It is alleged that between the 29th day of October 2014 and the 29th day of November, 2014 in Saskatoon Saskatchewan, Lisa Kusch “ DID ENGAGE IN THE BUSINESS OR PRACTICE OF MIDWIFERY, WHILE UNAUTHORIZED TO DO SO, CONTARY TO SECTION 23(2) OF THE MIDWIFERY ACT” (see below for the wording of that section of the Act).
That’s it. There are no specific details of what Lisa did or did not do. It seems to me that this is an overly broad and vague accusation. The document with the allegation was accompanied by emailed complaints filed by the birthing woman and the attendant at the birth (a doula/friend of the woman who accompanied her when she transported to the hospital).

Some of the information I have gathered which is to the best of my knowledge:
1. Lisa was not present when the baby was born.
2. Lisa is not a Registered Midwife and doesn’t represent herself as a Registered Midwife. That has been agreed upon by all parties and she is not accused or charged for this.
3. The woman was having her first baby and transferred to hospital for pain management. I am told that the baby was delivered by non-emergency c-section, at the mother’s request. The medical reason given was failure to progress.
4. Mother and baby were discharged from hospital on a normal schedule.
5. Lisa is accused in the complaints of causing poor outcomes and delayed recovery, due to excess blood loss during the surgery.

If Lisa is found guilty of a summary offense the result will be a fine of up to $4000. This is not a criminal case and it is not a civil case. The burden of proof is on the Crown to prove that the defendant practiced unauthorized practices according to the Midwifery Act of Saskatchewan. If one reads the applicable section of the act quoted in the charge above, it is vague in its definitions.
This case will set a precedent as it is the first in Saskatchewan and will have national implications.
The trial date is now set for October 24, 2017.

Start of Section 23 (2) No person shall engage in the business or practice of performing any of the authorizedpractices described in subsection (1) with respect to another individual unless:
(a) the person is a member who is authorized by his or her license to perform
that practice;
(b) the person is authorized pursuant to another Act to perform that practice;
or
(c) the activity is one of daily living and is performed by the individual or by
a person on the individual’s behalf. (end of section)

I submit the above to help people see the bones of this complaint and action against Lisa Kusch. Thanks for reading. I will update/edit as more info comes to light. Gloria Lemay, July 12, 2017

Some people have asked if they can send money for Lisa’s fund by bank transfer so I’ve set up a separate email and bank account for that purpose. The email address is lisakuschfund@gmail.com I’ll post periodic messages on the GoFundMe page about the total that comes in via bank transfer.
Lisa Kusch

The GoFundMe page to donate to the legal fund is at https://www.gofundme.com/lisakusch

Preparing for a Home Birth

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Home Birth Supply List

Please let me know well in advance if you are unable to find any item on the list. Collect all supplies and place them into a box. Place the box in an easily accessible place. Please tell the midwives where the supplies are kept when they arrive for the birth.

 24 flat incontinent pads to use under Mom’s bottom (22” x 24”)
 1 box of 4”x4” gauze squares
 2 boxes of Super Kotex pads (overnight)
 1 box or bag of salt (cheap, for stained linens)
 1 450 ml bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide (for removing stains from carpets, etc.)
 1 small bottle of bleach or Sudsy Ammonia
 1 100 ml bottle of Witch Hazel
 1 sealed small bottle of Olive Oil for perineal massage, baby’s bum
 1 bag of “pure” cotton balls
 2 large green garbage bags
 2 Plastic sheets (shower curtain liners work)
 1 flashlight with extra batteries
 1 plug-in room heater (if needed)
 1 hot water bottle
 1 nail brush
 1 tea strainer
 Womanly Art of Breastfeeding (book)

Nice Extras:
Bath pillow, candles, ice cubes, popsicles, plant mister, music, camera/film, tapes, thermometer, massage cream, heating pad, small Fleet Enema (if you get constipated a lot in pregnancy), reusable cotton menstrual pads.

Preparing Your Home:
Make up 5 casserole dishes to get you through the first days after birth and freeze them. Put a plastic sheet on your bed in the last week of pregnancy in case your waters break. Dust and clean the bedroom. Clean the toilet and bathtub. Clear off the top of a chest of drawers or other surface for us to put our instruments on. Make arrangements to have your pets out of the house during the birth.

Sterile Linens:
 6 face cloths
 6 bath towels
 2 bed sheets
 2 cotton cloth diapers
 6 receiving (flannel) blankets for baby
 1 undershirt and nightie/sleeper for baby

Put clean linens in HOT dryer for one half hour. During the last 10 minutes throw in 3 brown paper grocery bags and heat them through. When dryer finishes, fold the hot linens with clean hands and put them in hot bags. Seal them with staples or tape and label the outside. Store in a dry place. You do not need to use your best linens…clean is our main concern.

Electrolyte Balanced Drink (Labour-Ade):
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/3 cup honey or maple syrup
1/4 tsp salt
1 crushed calcium tablet (or 1/4 tsp calcium powder)
enough water to make 1 quart

Mix all ingredients together- use warm water to help dissolve the honey and calcium, and then chill. You can also make ice cubes. Buy enough ingredients to make 4 quarts. This is a delicious drink for after the birth as well. *After the baby is born you can add 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar to this drink to assist with peeing after the birth.

Your Newborn Baby—What’s Normal?

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    Parents’ Guide to the Newborn

Keep your caregiver informed of any concerns about your baby.
Phone number of dr., public health nurse, midwife, or other provider Name_______________________Phone_____________________

Your baby’s breathing

Noises such as snuffles, grunts, wheezes, etc are not a concern by themselves. Babies can be noisy breathers. They have small amounts of mucous in their airways from the birth process and they are adjusting to air breathing. It is normal for the breathing to be irregular—sometimes rapid and then followed by slow, deep breathing. When your baby cries vigorously, he/she will become redder in the face and take deep, gasping breaths. This is normal.

Concerns about breathing to notify your caregiver about are:

1. Chest retractions–if your baby draws the chest wall in noticeably when breathing and you can see the outline of the breast bone with every breath.

2. Prolonged rapid breathing–the rate of breathing in a healthy calm newborn should be about 30 to 40 breaths per minute. If the baby is doing a panting breathing when calm (60 or more breaths per minute) for more than 15 minutes, have your caregiver check.

3. If your baby seems to have worrisome breathing and blueness around the mouth, call your caregiver.

FEEDING Within 8 hours of birth, the baby should be waking to feed every two hours and latching on to the breast well. Demanding to be fed is a very good sign of health in a newborn. Your baby needs only what is in the breast, do not feed water. If baby seems lethargic and doesn’t wake to feed for 4 hours, call your caregiver immediately. This behavior might mean the baby has a serious infection.

COLOUR A small amount of blueness and coolness in the extremities (hands and feet) is normal. Some mottling of the chest and tummy is normal. Many parents are alarmed by the baby’s whole body going dark red like a strawberry, this is a normal result of changing blood circulation in the newborn. Generalized blue or gray colouring (rare) would be alarming.

4 Days old and the milk is in. Continuous skin to skin in bed with mother.

4 Days old and the milk is in. Continuous skin to skin in bed with mother.

TEMPERATURE Only take your baby’s temperature under the armpit. Digital thermometers can be purchased for about $12 at the pharmacy. If the temperature falls below 36.1 degrees Celsius (97 F) or goes above 37.2 degrees Celsius (99F), look to see if you have bundled the baby too warmly or if the baby needs more covering. Adjust the baby’s garments and recheck the temperature in 15 minutes. Call your caretaker if abnormal temperatures persist. The usual rule of thumb for baby covering is to look at what the adults are wearing and then add one more layer for the baby. The baby being skin to skin with the mother is a good way to help the baby have a normal temperature and breathing rate.

URINE The baby may only have one wet diaper per day for the first two days. Once the breast milk is in, the baby should have at least 6 very soaked diapers in 24 hours. Urine should be colourless. Some babies have crystals in their urine (orange staining that looks like face makeup) and this is not a concern in the first 3 days. After the third day, that orange staining can be a sign that the baby is dehydrated. Increase the time at the breast and advise your caregiver. Little girls may have a spot of blood in their diaper which is their first menstrual blood, this is normal. By the fourth day, the baby should have at least 6 very wet diapers per day (the diaper will feel heavy in your hand).

BOWEL MOVEMENTS In the first 24 hours of life, the baby will pass meconium (blackish, tarry stools). Next, the stools will be brownish, greenish and quite soft. Once the milk is fully in (around day 3 of life) the baby’s stools are the colour and consistency of yellow mustard. The baby should have two poops the size of a loonie (silver dollar) as a minimum every day. A well fed baby usually has much more than the minimum.

UMBILICAL CORD Fold diapers down away from the drying umbilical stump. The cord will be dry and blackened within 24 hours and the clamp can be removed. The stump usually rots off by 5 to 10 days after the birth. Don’t put peroxide or alcohol on the cord. It heals best if left alone. Because it is rotting flesh, there is usually a foul odor when it is ready to fall off and it can be quite goo-ey looking. If there is redness on the abdominal skin surrounding the belly button area, notify your caregiver.

EYES The policy in hospitals is to treat the baby’s eyes with an antibiotic cream called “Erythromicin”. If you do not want your baby to receive this antibiotic, let your caretaker know in advance and sign a waiver. Newborns can have plugged tear ducts which cause discharge to accumulate in their eyes. Bring any discharge concerns to the attention of your caregiver.

INTACT PENIS Keeping your son’s penis intact is now the recommended policy of physicians’ groups. There is no special cleaning that needs to be done. Simply bathe your baby in a warm bath and leave the foreskin alone. The foreskin is attached to the glans in babies (much like the fingernail is attached to the finger) and the separation process may take years to complete. Only the boy should retract his own foreskin, this should not be done by parents or medical professionals. For more info on caring for your intact son, there is a handy free brochure at this link http://www.nocirc.org/publish/pamphlet4.html

JAUNDICE Yellowing of the skin of the newborn in the first 24 hours of life is unusual and should be called to the attention of your caregiver.
After Day 2, some yellowing is normal. Usually the face and chest are the most yellow places on the body. The baby may be sleepier than normal with jaundice and you may have to wake the baby to feed every two hours. It’s important that the baby remains well hydrated in order to get rid of the yellow cells from the body. Let your caregiver know if you are having trouble waking/feeding the baby or if the yellowness extends out to the hands and feet.

Slightly jaundiced newborn

Slightly jaundiced newborn

Gloria Lemay, Vancouver, BC
March 2016

Grand Multipara Birth

Posted on by
15
From www.nzdl.org

From www.nzdl.org

This is an online conversation that I had with a grand multip (woman who has given birth more than 5 times). There are special things about birth after the fifth baby. . . for instance, sometimes the process can be stop and start for days and, then, suddenly. . . here’s the baby. There is nothing wrong with that way of birthing but, because large families are relatively rare, many practitioners lose faith and patience and brand the woman as “failure to progress”.

Another unique thing about women carrying a fifth or more baby is that they are prone to what midwives call the “blue right leg syndrome”. It can be alarming to see how blue the right leg becomes in pregnancy but, then, the baby is out and the woman’s right leg looks just fine again. I like to read things by the midwives in the USA who serve religious groups with big families. Lots of little anecdotes like that.

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GLORIA AND CAROLINE
Hi Gloria,
I am wondering if you could answer a couple things for me.
I was reading your post about the 30 Minute Third Stage, and saw your comment about the anti-bleed tea. I’m curious to know more about this.
I understood that shepherd’s purse was not to be used until after the placenta was delivered, and that it was dangerous to use it before.
I see that one of the ingredients for your anti-bleed tea is shepherd’s purse. Can you share with me how it differs in the tea, as opposed to using the tincture? Also, is this safe to use as a grand multip? This is my 10th baby, 14th pregnancy.
I tend to bleed a fair bit with my births, and I am trying to be prepared this time, (due in August) and read and research things that I could/should try to have on hand, especially in case my attendant doesn’t make it here on time. I tend to go quickly, and feel a strong need to be prepared this time.
Thank you for any input you are willing to share (smile emoticon). Caroline

TUES 22:35
Hi Caroline, One of the things with grand multips that really helps prevent bleeding is going for a 1/2 hour brisk walk (edited for clarity–a daily walk in pregnancy). One of my clients found some research on it and it really seems to work. I don’t know why. As far as the shepherd’s purse, no one can really do studies on these herbs and their use after a birth. We worry more about after pains with grand multips. Therefore we give a cramp bark /cinnamon tea. A couple of things that I’ve seen lately that interest me for the after pains are 1. Increasing magnesium supplementation after the birth. 2. Emptying the bladder more often than you think you need to. Just get up and pee if it’s been a while and don’t wait till you feel like pee’ing. Apparently these 2 things are very helpful for cramps. Thank you for writing. I’d love you to have a smooth, relaxed birth. Gloria
06:07

Thank you so very much for your time!!
These are some very interesting points.

I’m curious for a little more information on the brisk walk. Is this something your recommend in labor? Or for the days leading up to birth?

I feel so much peace about our upcoming birth. Much more so than I’ve felt with any of the others. But I also am loving to learn as much as I can about birth as a whole, and things that could be useful for my own as well.
Thank you again. Caroline

10:30
You’re very welcome, Caroline. I mean a walking program starting NOW. I never ask women to walk when they are in the birth process. I’m afraid they will hit me! ha ha. You’ll know what you want to do when having the baby, it’s the preparation that’s important. By a walk I mean a brisk walk with no kids, no purse, flat shoes and really walking as fast as you can. Gloria

Gloria, Thank you! I will start doing that today. ?

I am soaking up as much information as I can.

I also have to say that I love following your page and reading on your site. So much information that has been so useful.
Thank you for everything you do!!
Makes me wish I was in Canada and could meet you! Caroline

That’s very sweet of you. You are exactly the woman I am writing for, so many people just can’t “get” what I’m trying to communicate.
Gloria

I am loving the learning! I have been trying to dig as deep as I can, and find as many different ideas and perspectives as I can. I’m always thrilled when I find new perspective that makes sense!
Will you be offering your online class again in the future? I would be very interested in taking part, if you do.
Caroline

Added: Another tip I will give to grand multips. When you have lots of older children, they ALL want to hold the new baby. This gets to be a competition and a struggle and it could be a reason why the mother might bleed too much. Explain to the entire family like this: “It’s very important that Mommy has the baby on her skin for the first day of the baby’s life. That helps Mommy’s body to change over from being pregnant to being a nursing mother. If we want Mommy to stay at home and be healthy, we are ALL going to wait until the baby is 24 hours old before we take turns holding the baby.” In most families, the kids really understand this and they don’t mind so much not holding the baby as long as no one else is either.