Pregnancy and Birth
A natural approach to improving and preserving ...
There has been much in the media about fertility. Television presenter Kirstie Allsopp warned women in their twenties of the heartache of dwindling fertility, encouraging them to have children early and save university for later. Facebook and Apple announced that to encourage longevity in their female employees’ careers and commitment, they would pay for egg freezing. Both are drastic options and would certainly not suit every woman. There is however another option: making the choice to take a natural approach to optimising and preserving fertility. In today’s ‘full on’ society it has never been more relevant than it is now to consider your fertility and do everything you can naturally to grow your family. It is widely believed that a woman is born with her full supply of eggs, millions of them, that these naturally decline and we lose many each month, and that, unlike men, who manufacture sperm on...
A natural approach to improving and preserving your fertility
There has been much in the media about fertility. Television presenter Kirstie Allsopp warned women in their twenties of the heartache of dwindling fertility, encouraging them to have children early...
Empowered Birth: the media and birth
Birth has been back in the media recently with several prominent headlines as the BBC promoted the dramatisation of Adam Kay’s autobiography This Is Going to Hurt. I have read many of the reactions from the public and from midwives and, as usual, opinion is divided. An episode of Panorama aired in February on the failings in some NHS trusts called ‘Maternity Scandal: Fighting for the Truth’. Following the programme, the BBC reported that the NHS in England is to drop the limit on caesarean births. The problems and catastrophes described in such portrayals of birth in the media mean that balance and context is absent and confidence in birth is lost. I am familiar with this fallout having worked in the birth sector for 29 years. I have no control over how women manage their pregnancies and what support they seek. If they find information from the valuable resources...
Empowered Birth: the media and birth
Birth has been back in the media recently with several prominent headlines as the BBC promoted the dramatisation of Adam Kay’s autobiography This Is Going to Hurt. I have read...
Empowered Birth: feeling empowered in your jour...
As a therapist in private practice, my focus is on supporting the women I meet to reach their highest potential. This can be in an emotional, physical or psychological way. Being empowered is not about being stroppy or argumentative, or submissive and passive, but about celebrating our uniqueness and strength. I use my skills and knowledge to support and assist women so that they feel empowered to ask for what they need clearly and confidently during pregnancy and birth. Each woman who comes and works with me chooses to commit to this without knowing what the birth will feel like, how long it will take, how she will cope and recover, and how she will parent her new baby. She is willing to lean on her partner or family for love and support, but she knows that ultimately this is her journey. In birth this is how it has always...
Empowered Birth: feeling empowered in your journey to birth
As a therapist in private practice, my focus is on supporting the women I meet to reach their highest potential. This can be in an emotional, physical or psychological way....
Birth stories: active labour and the birth of a...
Active birth was the doorway to more than a positive birth experience: it changed my understanding of womanhood and my family’s birth story, writes Caroline Brewser It’s the birth experiences of our mothers that are most likely to shape our image of what birth will be like. And for those of us born from the 1960s onwards, the story tends to involve a woman in a hospital, subject to control by those around her, undergoing a ‘procedure’ to extract a baby as a means to an end. And the pain is recounted as the badge of honour. My mother’s story does at least have a hint of ‘feminist backlash’. One wintry Sunday night in the late 1960s, my father having been sent home an hour before with the assurance “Nothing is going to happen tonight”, she was told that if I didn’t emerge in the next minute they would cut...
Birth stories: active labour and the birth of a mother
Active birth was the doorway to more than a positive birth experience: it changed my understanding of womanhood and my family’s birth story, writes Caroline Brewser It’s the birth experiences...
Empowered Birth: using a rebozo during pregnancy
A large, handwoven piece of fabric and symbol of Mexican identity, the rebozo ̶ a word meaning shawl ̶ is multifunctional: it can be a fashionable item of clothing, a baby sling, a shade from the sun and can also be used to carry things. It is a woman’s companion during her whole life and how she lives with it is based on oral tradition and ancient wisdom passed down through the generations. Frida Kahlo popularised the rebozo and those she was photographed in or was depicted wearing in paintings have been displayed all over the world, representing the intersection where art, culture and fashion collide. However, their oldest use has been in support of pregnancy and in the past eighteen months I have been using the rebozo as a midwifery tool aimed to gently move the womb for increased comfort and control. Every time I use it, I learn...
Empowered Birth: using a rebozo during pregnancy
A large, handwoven piece of fabric and symbol of Mexican identity, the rebozo ̶ a word meaning shawl ̶ is multifunctional: it can be a fashionable item of clothing, a...
Happy Hormones: plant-based recipes that promot...
Hormones control more than most people think; they act as the master switches for growth, reproduction, mood, metabolism, weight, energy, brain function, libido, and the appearance of your skin, hair and nails. And they can make your life downright miserable if they aren’t fluctuating with optimal ratios. The belief that hormones can only be tamed through medication is false, and these ideas are severely outdated. If we provide young girls with the tools, resources, and education to understand the ride to womanhood – fluctuating hormones and all – it would encourage a more positive connection to their bodies from the beginning. My mission is to combat hormone imbalance and promote women’s health. Through my recipes I encourage women to eat cyclically for the monthly cycle. Every vegetable, fruit, legume, nut, and seed offers unique vitamins and minerals that can help the body flow through each phase with fewer symptoms and...
Happy Hormones: plant-based recipes that promote energy and balance
Hormones control more than most people think; they act as the master switches for growth, reproduction, mood, metabolism, weight, energy, brain function, libido, and the appearance of your skin, hair...
Empowered Birth: energy medicine
Energy medicine is based upon the belief that changes in the life force of the body affect health and can promote healing. The idea of life force in traditional cultures – the belief that a special energy vitalises all life – has been shared by people around the world since ancient times. Since the 17th century, western medicine has focused on physical aspects of disease. A new paradigm emerged in the 1990s, one which celebrates the creative, subtle, empowering and wise aspects of ourselves. Energy medicine is a broad term that encompasses many therapies – hands-on and hands-off, in close proximity and remote – and what they all have in common is a focus on a person’s internal energy and ability to be well. Having undertaken much training over the years, I believe in the power of energetic medicine. When I am with women in pregnancy or in labour, I...
Empowered Birth: energy medicine
Energy medicine is based upon the belief that changes in the life force of the body affect health and can promote healing. The idea of life force in traditional cultures...
Empowered Birth: online birth support
I have recently joined a physiological birth group on the social media app Clubhouse. (Clubhouse allows you to listen to interesting discussions on various topics and join in with the conversations.) It has been great fun, and I have already met many people through listening and sharing my viewpoint. I recommend anyone with an interest in birth to join, listen and, if they want to, engage with the conversation. All are welcome. There is no hierarchy, no hidden agenda, no fee and no critique. The group organiser, Kemi Johnson, is passionate about spreading the conversation around physiology and how to protect it in birth. Johnson has now started a WhatsApp group too, bringing together like-minded people for support and resources. I have been introduced to birth workers from across the country who describe the status of birth in their region, with updates on the challenges they have in their local...
Empowered Birth: online birth support
I have recently joined a physiological birth group on the social media app Clubhouse. (Clubhouse allows you to listen to interesting discussions on various topics and join in with the...
Empowered Birth: adaptive changes our body make...
“The baby will work out the best way to move through her mother – even if we don’t understand it.” Rachel Reed The uterus is phenomenal, and yet completely undermined. I think it needs to be the centre of our consideration in pregnancy, checked in on and looked after. Sophie Messager (author of Why Postnatal Recover Matters) shares this knowledge through her rebozo work (you can read her feature ‘Closing the Bones’ in Issue 70). Mothers are always full of appreciation when I use the rebozo, and I would love to do some Closing the Bones massage; it sounds so comforting and completing after any birth. In the last issue, I described the several functions of the uterus, which culminate in expelling the baby into the world. Within days after this, the uterus begins to revert to its pre-pregnancy state. By the time it is ready to undertake this job, though,...
Empowered Birth: adaptive changes our body makes in pregnancy
“The baby will work out the best way to move through her mother – even if we don’t understand it.” Rachel Reed The uterus is phenomenal, and yet completely undermined....
Losing it: birth on the big screen
Nedua Hussain examines the disempowering and unrealistic depictions of birth in movies and TV, and shares why it matters more than we think I love films, I love going to the cinema or watch films online. I love to watch people’s lives played out on the screen. Childhood, adolescence, finding a partner, having children, death…but hang on, when have I last seen a birth scene? When I looked closer, I realised that in general, childbirth scenes are largely absent in films or omitted completely (we see a pregnant woman and then we see her with the baby as though birth hasn’t happened). Why is something so central to human existence not portrayed? We see pictures of naked women regularly in the public domain, on and off screen, women being beautiful, sexual beings in all kinds of situations – but not while birthing their babies. But let’s look at those films...
Losing it: birth on the big screen
Nedua Hussain examines the disempowering and unrealistic depictions of birth in movies and TV, and shares why it matters more than we think I love films, I love going to...