Well, it is here, now!  And you could be using the Baby Bump Services Childbirth Education Platform to cultivate community and offer fun, informative childbirth classes in your area.  Liz Chalmers, of Birth Zone says:

“The best money I ever spent was buying Kyndal’s curriculum.  More than 1500 people have benefited from her wisdom, in my classes alone. Thank you, Kyndal, for the foundation you have created. I am thrilled you are making it more broadly available–there’s only so many people you and I can teach.”

This childbirth education platform is based on the curriculum I use in my successful Confident Birthing Childbirth Class and is used by authorized childbirth educators throughout the Pacific Northwest. Emily Fontes, who took the class in 2005 as a expectant mom is now looking forward to using the platform in her Your Birth, Your Way classes:

“I’m totally in love.  (The material) is even better than I remember. My mind is just swimming with possibilities!”

The Baby Bump Services CBE Platform comes with one CD with the reproducible Study Guide for classroom use, Instructor’s Guide and a few additional handouts.  In addition, you receive the bound Facilitator’s Guide with Lesson Plans for over 19 hours of lessons.  These plans include a complete script for birth rehearsal, and an overview of each of the 7 sessions.  Also included are suggestions for ways to connect with your students between classes to reinforce topics from the last session and set up learning and discovery for the session to come.  The Facilitator’s Guide includes a Resource List and complete supply lists for each session including every day items that you can use to illustrate a point as well as great childbirth education tools such as The Labor Simulator.

Also available for separate purchase is the Baby Bump Cesarean Section DVD. This DVD has 69 beautiful black and white photographs of a cesarean section that can be used in the class on interventions.  However you approach your intervention class, having detailed photos of the environment and process of a surgical birth can better prepare those mothers/couples whose babies need to be born by cesarean section.  This DVD is also a useful tool for doulas to use to prepare clients privately.

For more information about any of the Baby Bump Services Products, please contact me.

As doulas and childbirth educators we often spend some time introducing the idea of rhythm to our clients.  We share that rhythm is a common denominator among women who cope well with their labor and birth.  We explore how a laboring woman can find her rhythm, and how everyone can support her and try not to interfere with it.

Today I found this Ted.com presentation clip of the wonderful musician, Bobby McFerrin, together with some men I assume are likely neuroscientists.  The presentation was called “Neurons and Notes.”

And, as I was watching, I saw a few things here I often see in birth.

What I find so fascinating about Bobby McFerrin’s interplay with the audience is that it illustrates how we easily connect in rhythm and through sound.  I loved watching how the audience falls into the rhythm easily and effortlessly follows him…until…he splits his legs and we have to go into our “thinking” brains and make a decision.

Watch a laboring woman who is confronted with a question and you’ll see her do something very similar.  When she comes into her thinking brain, she comes out of that part of her BodyMind that easily finds a rhythm and flows with it, with her baby and birth.  Asking the laboring woman a question during a contraction looks very similar to the awkward, halting that we saw the audience go through when McFerrin presented them with an option.

But notice, how quickly the rhythm returned when the audience again followed him.  Here is another thing I see in labor.  Just like in life…we search for the patterns.  And we look to those we trust to help us find a pattern (rhythm) and help us stay there (ritual).  We will go into a rhythm we may not really know or feel completely comfortable with if we can go there with a person we trust.

A laboring woman’s BodyMind is searching for the rhythm and she will follow a “trusted servant” (doula) even to that unknown rhythm if the expectation, as McFerrin mentioned at the beginning, is there that we will help her and that we will stay with her in that rhythm until the end.

The audience went willingly with McFerrin because they expected him to create a pattern, a rhythm they could follow.  And they followed him, even anticipated where he was going, because they locked onto him…they attuned with him…and together, they made music.

A music lesson for the doula in all of us.

Need a resource to give expectant parents so they can create their own birth or baby soundtracks?

Tell them about 8tracks.com

If you are a doula or childbirth educator, you are probably familiar with using acronyms to help parents navigate pregnancy and birth choices, particularly those choices that fall into the category of interventions.

When I first started teaching in the late 1990’s, I found the acronym BRAND (below) in a Midwifery Today Journal.

B – Benefits of suggested procedure/test/action;

R - Risks of procedure/test/action;

A - Alternatives available;

N – Nothing… what will happen if no procedure/test/action is implemented;

D – Decide

I taught my Variations, Complications and Interventions class using this acronym for a couple of years.  Then, in one of my classes, one of the dads (whose job was something like: “technology feedback and neuro-linguistic specialist” – seriously, I couldn’t make that up) pointed out to me that the root of the word decide is: cide – meaning “to deliberately kill or eliminate.”

It is important to know that the class this father was in was made up of the following mix of couples: 5 first time parents and 3 second time parents whose babies had all been born by cesarean section.  Those 3 couples all believed their cesarean sections had been unnecessary and were looking for a more empowering and satisfying experience this time around.  It was important to them not to eliminate options.

At the time, I also worked at the Puget Sound Birth Center and I often noticed that one of the midwives, Valerie Sasson, never used the term “informed consent”.  She would instead say, “informed choice”.  That left an impression on me and the students in my class agreed that having choice in childbirth was paramount.

So, that evening, that class of passionate parents collectively came to the conclusion that a satisfying birth could include giving birth by cesarean section if the mother and partner felt they had choices and if they felt they were well-prepared, well-informed and well-supported.

That evening, we changed BRAND to BRANCh with a ch for CHOICE.

I loved this – BRANCh -  my mind immediately conjured up an image of an amazing, majestic tree.

When I share this concept now, I talk about the idea that all the main branches represent each letter of the acronym, one branch is benefits, another is risks and the rest and that the smaller branches represent the questions you will ask to make informed choices.  I tell them that each time they use these tools to ask questions, do research, inquire and consider what is important to them, they are growing the roots of this “empowerment tree” deep into the ground.

I proceeded to teach BRANCh for many more years until I heard Lamaze Trainer, Teri Schilling, introducing this concept to some new childbirth educators.  She referred to the now familiar acronym, B.R.A.I.N.  The letters are all the same except the “i” was added to stand for your INTUITION.

I knew that day I really needed to add the i into BRANCh.  I was always telling my students to trust their guts!  I felt it was important to add it into the acronym so they would always remember to check in with their own inner-knowing.  I would put it in…but, where?   The answer came relatively easily.

In our i-tunes, i-pod, internet culture, it made all the sense in the world to me that we would:

i-BRANCh!

And so it has been ever since.

Now, when I introduce i-branch to the parents and doulas I teach, I begin first with BRANCh, alone.  And then I talk about the leaves on the tree and ask them to tell me if they notice, when they are looking at trees, how the leaves will sometimes be moving, showing us that the wind is blowing when we otherwise don’t feel or notice it.  I ask them if they might have a built-in, invisible signal in their bodymind that alerts them to something they need to know.  And sure enough, you can see it on their faces, watch their breath change slightly in their bodies as each one remembers their own inner-voice, their inner inkling that communicates to them as well.  Their intuition.

And with that, we all feel the roots of our trees growing deeper.

Looking for a great way to introduce the Lamaze Healthy Birth Practices to your CBE or doula clients? How about…

Healthy Birth Practice Flags

 These Healthy Birth Practices Flags were inspired by the Baby Tee Shirt Prayer Flags (created for the Bon Future Fund) which I had hanging in my classroom in Bellevue, WA for several years.  I hung the prayer flags with the backs of the baby tees facing out as each was printed with the words, “love” and ”peace” on it.  Those little baby tee shirts were a constant reminder to all the expectant parents and new parents as to why we were there and it almost felt like those little tee shirts were speaking to us - asking us to consider what we each hoped to experience and contribute, not only as parents, but as human beings. 

Recently, I have been thinking of ways to reinforce the Lamaze Healthy Birth Practices in a subtle, but consistent way throughout my Confident Birthing Childbirth Class.  I remembered the little baby tee shirt flags and realized I found what I wanted, and so, I have created these Healthy Birth Practices Flags to hang in my classroom during my classes.   Each baby tee shirt messages one of the Lamaze Healthy Birth Practices and, like the flags I had in my classroom in Washington, each tee shirt seems to be reminding the expectant parents to choose the healthiest way to labor and give birth.

Each Healthy Birth Practices Flag feels like a message to mom from baby.

The flags could be used in many different ways.  You might reveal a new one each week of a 6 week series as you introduce each of the 6 Healthy Birth Practices.  You can easily build your class content around the Lamaze Birth Practices as does my friend, Sharon Muza, of New Moon Birth in Seattle.   Sharon also shared with me that parents can build a simple but powerful 6 point birth plan based on these practices as well. 

These tee shirts inspire creativity…how would you use the Healthy Birth Practices Flags in your class?

The Sharing Trust is my take on the brain trust. The first time I heard the phrase was when I had the pleasure of spending some time with Aggie Sweeney, CEO and President of The Collins Group in Seattle. Aggie introduced to me to the power of “having as many people in your ‘brain trust’ as possible” and she left an indelible mark on me.

Many years before blogging, facebook and Twitter, Aggie Sweeney showed me what connecting could really mean. I understood marketing and networking but Aggie added a dimension that spoke to something deep inside of me: community.

During the brief time I spent with Aggie she was kind enough to take me to an amazing event, The Art of Dining, an annual fundraiser for the Women’s Funding Alliance. It was then I began to think more “globally” about my work. Watching all these diverse people come together with common purpose – to raise money, resources, and hope for women and girls was inspiring to me. I left that evening thinking over and over…”common purpose”.

True community is where real and meaningful connections are made… and when women make connections, communities are stronger.  This photo above is of a wonderful community of purpose: new doulas! 

The Women’s Funding Alliance has a great tag line: “When women and girls thrive, the entire community benefits.”  That was what felt so abundantly clear when I spent time with Aggie Sweeney.

I knew she “got it”… that what women do… what women CAN do, matters.

Pretty much what I am about (Confident Birthing and all) and right in line with another favorite quote of mine:

“If a community values its children, it must first value its mothers.”

Maternal Care and Mental Health Monograph, 1951

A long time ago, I read somewhere that people typically make life-time friends around two major chapters in our lives: at college, or other graduate learning communities, and after we have a baby.

I witness this possibility each time I teach a childbirth class series and come back to the class reunion. While pregnant in the childbirth class, couples may be more or less communicative with other couples. Some are quite interactive, others not so much, but come to the reunion, and you will see nearly all the proud (and awestruck) parents easily communicating with each other, sharing stories, laughing and encouraging each other. Parenthood brings camaraderie in a way I have seen little else do.

It makes sense. Parenting is the quintessential “on-the-job training”. We have been thrown into the ring and must find every resource, every asset, every companion-in-learning we can find. This is vitally important because our job requires, not the design or maintenance of some inanimate system or project, but the nurturance and rearing of a dynamic little being who we love dearly.

Our investment is great. So, it makes sense that we seek out others in the same situation to help lower our learning curve. We seek community and make our learning social.

And so we create “Communities of Practice”, a term coined by sociologists, Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, PhD. Communities of Practice are an example of an alternative to our culturally defined and structured learning – something which has a beginning and end; and is done in isolation or individually, apart from the rest of our lives and through a teacher. A Community of Practice, conversely, is the very essential, meaningful way we learn through participation and process. And, in the case of a new parent, it is crucial, because it provides meaning, and identity within our new role.

According to Wenger, “Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor. In a nutshell: Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better.”

Yet, Wenger, explains, “Not everything called a community is a community of practice. A neighborhood for instance, is often called a community, but is usually not a community of practice”.

In a Community of Practice, these 3 characteristics must exist:

1. The domain: the domain is the identity which is shared by the group: expectant parents, new parents, doula, childbirth educator, etc. “Membership” to the community connotes an acceptance of, or commitment to the identity: doula. The value to the “members” is the “collective competence” and the opportunity to learn from each other.
2. The community: This is the coming-together part. Whether in a class, a support group or a play group, “in pursuing their interest in their domain, members engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other.” Even if the daily (doula work) is done mostly alone, even in a different city or state, the repeated community exchange informs their experience.
3. The practice: “A community of practice is not merely a community of interest-people who like certain kinds of movies, for instance. Members of a community of practice are (doula/childbirth educator) practitioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems-in short a shared practice. This takes time and sustained interaction. A good conversation with a stranger on an airplane may give you all sorts of interesting insights, but it does not in itself make for a community of practice. It is the combination of these three elements that constitutes a community of practice. And it is by developing these three elements in parallel that one cultivates such a community.”

So this “community of practice” is what I am calling my Sharing Trust. It is here where the shared repetoire of resources (and of doubts and questioning, joys and celebrations) happen. And it is here where we can just BE.

Afterall, when doulas and childbirth educators connect… communities thrive.

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.” “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the queen. “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” ~ Lewis Carroll

This became one of my favorite quotes when I lived in Washington State. A midwife I worked closely with said to me one day: “You just have to give everyone some time to catch up to your vision. You are usually a few months out ahead of the rest of us.” Later that day I found this card. I have had it ever since (you can see the latte stain on the card-a reminder of my 11 years in Seattle and the beginning of a love for chai tea lattes). I’ve kept that card on my bulletin board close ever since to remind me that dreaming “impossible things” is a bit of a pattern with me and I should probably stick with it.

What impossible dreams are you dreaming today?