Serendipity

“Our work in this area began when one of our medical students failed to follow the instructions for another study. She was only supposed to obtain the approval of primiparous, healthy mothers in early labor. They were then to go through the usual hospital routine, and the study was to begin at their babies' birth. She obtained the approval for the study early in labor, but stayed with each of 10 study mothers giving emotional and physical support until they delivered (family support was not permitted in this hospital). When we first heard about this error, we were upset, because all of these mothers and babies had to be removed from the ongoing study. However, when we looked more closely at the charts of these mothers, we found that they had unusually short labors. Surprisingly, three of these mothers delivered in the bed. This was unheard of in this hospital, because the focus of the delivery unit was sterility, and the rules of the hospital were that every mother was to deliver in a "sterile" delivery room. It is this serendipitous observation of altered labor with emotional support that has been the focus of our research for the last 10 years.”

Klaus, Marshall H. Touching during and after childbirth. In Field, TM (Ed), Touch in early development (pp19-33). Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum. 

Birth and Beyond 2013

Why do I love this conference and the women who work so hard to make it a success every year?

Because it's fun! We get to play!

And for so many other reasons. We get to stretch our boundaries: just like the perineum stretches so nicely when a baby's head moves past it, so we have to stretch our ideas and preconceptions when we meet the motley crew of professionals, activists, birthing women, and others, who make this conference the best of the year.

We also have to think. The speakers and movers and shakers at this conference are really good at pushing us to look outside the box: Jodi Hall has a superb intellect, and her grasp of complicated ideas is truly stunning. She manages to light up those ideas for us lesser mortals, and challenge us to use our brain power while we take pleasure in the exercises she prepares for us.  James McKenna and Diane Weissinger speak science: let's start thinking about "what would mammals do?" Gloria Lemay does not suffer complacency lightly - she will always challenge you to a duel. Robbie Davis-Floyd can always be relied upon to: 1. present complicated papers on birth from an anthropologists viewpoint; 2. tell hilarious stories about the rock stars in the birth world and 3. be the amazing woman who starts everyone singing.

We have to compromise: the intactivists breathed the same air as those participants who choose circumcision. The registered midwives discussed their work with the not-so-registered.

And, best of all, the participants at Birth and Beyond are truly lovely: from different walks of life and different places, with stories and paths that sometimes converge and sometimes not. And, somehow, we  all manage to get along just fine. Well, most of us. And that's because, at Birth and Beyond, everyone doesn't necessarily share the exact same viewpoint.

We get to talk about interesting concepts like LOVE, like VOLUNTEERING, like CO-SLEEPING,  like ENTITLEMENT, like FEAR IN BIRTH, like WHAT TO DO, like LOSS?

We learn and go on learning, we open our minds and our hearts, we meet people we would not expect to meet.

This is above all a conference that is dynamic and alive. It is not political, it doesn't seem to subscribe to a certain political line, and that is the beauty of it. Melanie and Shawn have managed to get all of the ingredients together for an event that is going to keep on moving, year after year …. don't you want to be part of it?

Get involved! Birth and Beyond 2014

Salut Pauline! Loving my adopted province!

Last week, Montreal Birth Companions assisted a woman to give birth. Her hospital stay was very long and she finally left with a bill of over $20,000.

She was one of the many women MBC assists who do not have medical coverage here, who give birth in our hospitals at great cost. Some of these women are domestics who have been fired by their employers. Some are women who are here on the wrong kind of visa to be pregnant (hey, Harper! I thought you were against abortion!). Some are here illegally because they are afraid of harm or death in their home countries, but they do not qualify as refugees.

This woman was the kind of Muslim that Madame Marois wants: modern, educated, no head scarf. Her reasons for fleeing her country were valid and I will not explain more. She was taken in by an elderly Anglophone woman until the baby was born.

She needed a place to live, so we finally found her somewhere to stay until she gets on her feet. She is employable and will be fine.

But - her birth and postpartum search for housing was such a typical Quebecois event! The new mother was a Muslim. She wears western clothing and no head scarf. She was taken in by a Quebecois Anglophone, who is very old and appeared to wear a dressing gown. Her doula was a Quebecois Francophone who is a political activist. She rides her bicycle most days and has a couple of piercings. Her second doula was also Quebecois, who is a member of the Canadian army. The mentor doula is a Jewish woman whose politics veer from left to anarchist. She wears a headscarf. The shelter where she finally found refuge is run by a Muslim woman from Malaysia who regularly provides food for one hundred people at a nearby church. She wears a hijab and a floor length gown. The journalist who was interested in the story is a member of a visible minority. We all spoke different languages: French, English, Arabic, Bahasa Malaysia, Italian... and probably more...

We are united by love and goodwill, and by the urge to change this world for the better. Some of us wear head coverings, some of us don't. Some of us believe in God, some might not. But this Quebec is the place I like living - where we all get by and get along, sometimes speaking in broken this or that, trying to get along because we believe that getting along is a good thing. It's the place I brought my kids so they would get an education, and they are getting an education, and they speak several languages, including the language of tolerance.

So, Pauline, even though you have a bunch of liberal feminists on your side, and some aging would-be politicians, I would like you to come and visit our Quebec: the Quebec where we help people who don't necessarily believe in the same things we believe in, or speak the same language as we do, or wear the same clothes as we do. And I would like to remind you that while you are doing your politics, babies are being born and friends are being made and bonds are being formed across all of your artificially constructed boundaries.

A Student Doula's Story

Here is a post from another blog by one of my Level One students … giving you an inside view of what it's like to be a student doula, volunteering for Montreal Birth Companions.

DEAR BIRTHING, WITH LOVE (thank you http://highalert.net/news/dear-birthing-love)

I am ready to stop typing and run to my phone if it rings. It may be a call from the doula I’m shadowing. There is a woman who will give birth any day now, and when this woman (the client/patient/mother-to-be*) needs birth support, I will go (with the doula) to be with her at her home, or maybe straight to the hospital.

Besides my own, the only birth I’ve attended was that of my little sister, and I was a 5 year-old, and it was late at night. This makes me a minority among the 16 women in my Level 1 doula training course with the Montreal Birth Companions, because I am not a mother.

You don’t have to be a mother to be a doula. You just have to be there. In the last few months of this course, I’ve learned a lot about birth: anatomy, pain-alleviation techniques, how it progresses and why it might stall, affirmations, visualizations, and what to pack in my birth bag. This is all important, but the most important role that a doula plays is of being present, and being loving.

Montreal Birth Companions, then, love hundreds of women a year. They provide free doula services to women in need. They are most often refugees, immigrants, women without family in Canada, and women who don’t have health care. They are women who just need a little bit of love at a vulnerable time.

With each ‘birth story’ that I hear from a fellow Montreal Birth Companion, I am filled with admiration at the important role they play at these births. They are advocates and peace-makers, negotiators and videographers, a friend and calm presence. I am also filled with a certain amount of frustration or anger at a medical system that seems, often, to desecrate such a powerful moment—perhaps the most powerful of all. Birth also has two sides: pleasure and pain. But, I’ve learned that pain in birth serves a function—it releases oxytocin which makes the contractions stronger and more effective, and stress hormones increase blood flow, which brings much-needed oxygen to the baby. I’m not confident, though, that the ‘pain’ of the medical system serves a purpose.

I’ll remain on high alert for calls to explore birth and love in the hospital. In the meantime, I encourage you to VOTE daily for Montreal Birth Companion’s campaign to provide more free pre-natal classes to women. You can like the MBC’s facebook page and select 'get notifications' for daily reminders.

*Serving as a doula is new to me and I am not sure what language I feel comfortable with, yet. As my teacher writes in her book The Birth Conspiracy, 'client' seems impersonal and business-like, while 'patient' may disempower the woman giving birth.

Level Two Doula Course

I am very pleased and a little taken aback that my doula course has been so well received. So, happily, I will be offering Level Two starting on November 25, 2013. 

Classes will start on November 25, 2013, and will go through to February 17, 2014, with a break in December. Classes will run every Monday night from 6:30 to 9:30, at 6767 Cote des Neiges, in Montreal.

I have tweaked this course a little, and added two extra classes, as there is always too much to learn! So it will be a total of thirty hours of class time. Shadowing and attending births will of course be part of the learning experience.

Please let me know as soon as possible if you are interested in Level Two. As always, the cost is $400, payable in instalments if need be.

We will be adding several other courses this year: Level Three will definitely be offered, also an in-depth Fun with Herbs Workshop and a doula retreat.

Here's a taste of Fun with Herbs:

Herb Day 2013

Healing Balm

Herbs and Poetry, Birth and Death

In the midst of our world turning as it does - MBC doesn't have enough doulas for our needy clients; refugees are streaming from war-torn countries to other, less war-torn countries, Kofi Awoonor killed in that horrific bombing in Nairobi - Kofi Awoonor! - may he rest in peace...

"Across a New Dawn"

Sometimes, we read the

lines in the green leaf

run our fingers over the

smooth of the precious wood

from our ancient trees;

Sometimes, even the sunset

puzzles, as we look

for the lines that propel the clouds,

the colour scheme

with the multiple designs

that the first artist put together

There is dancing in the streets again

the laughter of children rings

through the house

On the seaside, the ruins recent

from the latest storms

remind of ancestral wealth

pillaged purloined pawned

by an unthinking grandfather

who lived the life of a lord

and drove coming generations to

despair and ruin

But who says our time is up

that the box maker and the digger

are in conference

or that the preachers have aired their robes

and the choir and the drummers

are in rehearsal?

No; where the worm eats

a grain grows.

the consultant deities

have measured the time

with long winded

arguments of eternity

And death, when he comes

to the door with his own

inimitable calling card

shall find a homestead

resurrected with laughter and dance

and the festival of the meat

of the young lamb and the red porridge

of the new corn

We are the celebrants

whose fields were

overrun by rogues

and other bad men who

interrupted our dance

with obscene songs and bad gestures

Someone said an ailing fish

swam up our lagoon

seeking a place to lay its load

in consonance with the Original Plan

Master, if you can be the oarsman

for our boat

please do it, do it.

I asked you before

once upon a shore

at home, where the

seafront has narrowed

to the brief space of childhood

We welcome the travelers

come home on the new boat

fresh from the upright tree

From "Promises of Hope: New and Selected Poems", selected by Kofi Anyidoho, University of Nebraska Press and the African Poetry Book Fund, 2014

I bring to you a recipe for St John's Wort oil in the hopes that you will be able to use it to heal each other and yourselves.

This can be used for muscle strain, sunburn, muscle cramps, bruises, labor pains. Do not apply it to open skin, and remember that it may increase photosensitivity so don't use it as a suntan oil.

Have fun with herbs, read poetry, make love not war!

Call for Volunteers

Montreal Birth Companions provides free doula services, prenatal and postpartum support, and resources for refugee, non-status, and other marginalized women in Montreal.

We are in need of birth companions ... please contact me if you are willing and able to devote some time to our worthy cause.
If you are a doula and you can donate one birth every six months to MBC, we would be happy to have you on board!
We are looking especially for birth companions who are fluent in different languages. We would love to have more doulas from our diverse Montreal communities. We welcome everyone who has an open heart and is willing to donate their time and energy.

The women we serve appreciate the companionship, support and kindness that her doula provides. Women come from many backgrounds, walks of life, stories and histories. But the birthing year is the same: we want to give birth to a healthy baby, and we would like to have that experience to be filled with joy. This is not always possible if it is a sad time in the mother's life, but the presence of a birth companion can help spread the love.

We have clients from all around the world. Right now we are serving women from: Algeria, Haiti, St. Vincent, Germany, India, Nigeria, Philippines, Mali, Senegal, Guinee, and Quebec. Next month, we could receive requests from China, Cameroon, Mexico, the US, or Russia ... we never know where our clients will come from or when they will find us. We have had calls from women in their first trimester, and from women in labor!

Many midwifery students try to gain experience as interns in other countries. Volunteering for MBC is a way that doulas and aspiring midwives can gain experience working with women whose cultural attitudes and lives are very different from their own. It is a way that these doulas and aspiring midwives can really understand that the birth experience is universal, and that accompanying a woman in labor transcends language and reaches across boundaries.

Please consider volunteering for MBC.