Become a Doula

By Fabjob.com

As a doula you can touch lives and witness the miracle of creation. It is one of the most rewarding careers in the world. For centuries, doulas have served women from pregnancy through childbirth and the early stages of motherhood. During these times women need reassurance and information. They also need support, both physical and emotional – even spiritual. They need the type of insight and advice that only another woman can provide.

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Being Born: The Doula's Role

A DOULA SUPPORTS MOM AND THE WHOLE FAMILY WHEN A BABY IS ON THE WAY

This children’s picture book with simple text and soft watercolors explains in friendly terms to kids and parents about the role of a doula – a healthcare professional who offers physical and emotional support to a pregnant woman and her family. Research confirms that the support of a doula throughout pregnancy optimizes a woman’s chances of having a healthier birth experience as well as a healthier newborn. This book celebrates birth – as a natural and whole-family experience. Both its text and images present the subject clearly, but in child-appropriate language. Its gentle advocacy of a doula’s role make Being Born an invaluable resource for childbirth educators to use with first pregnancies, teenage mothers, and with families for whom English is a second language. When read to younger siblings, this book will be a source of comfort to those who wonder about all the people involved when mom is “having a baby.”

Belly Mapping Workbook

Belly mapping empowers a pregnant woman to discover her baby’s position in late pregnancy. This technique can be a fun bonding activity and is often used for proactive childbirth preparation using optimal fetal positioning.

Three steps take mothers from mystery to naming her own baby’s position. A transparency matches the chart of kicks and bulges the mother feels to a fetal drawing. In addition,100 drawings and photos take the mother- and midwife- through details of head-down and breech babies. You’ll find tips on noting engagement, on how to help baby engage and how to tell if baby is posterior. There is also a short guide to Spinning Babies and posterior labors.

Gail’s calm approach includes affirmations of trusting birth to make this booklet a joy to share with families in a midwife’s care.

Birth Ambassadors: Doulas and the Re-Emergence of Woman-Supported Birth in America By Christine H. Morton and Elayne G. Clift

Birth Ambassadors documents the social history of the emergence of doula care in the United States. What are doulas and where did they come from? Why do women become doulas? What does it mean to be a doula? Birth Ambassadors is the only book to fully answer these questions by connecting narrative accounts with critical sociological analysis of the dilemmas and issues embodied in doula history and practice. Based on historical research and interviews with currently practicing doulas and leaders in the field, Birth Ambassadors argues that the doula role is underpinned by ideological commitments to several overlapping and, at times, conflicting ideas around childbirth.

Birth Balls: Use of the Physical Therapy Ball in Maternity Care

By Paulina G. Perez, RN

This mini-book contains the history of the physical therapy balls as well the information on its use in obstetrics. The table of contents included the following topics:

~Ball sizing ,
~Safety tips,
~Care and cleaning,
~The"birth ball",
~Prenatal and childbirth education uses,
~Labor and delivery uses,
~Why this ball works,
~Postpartum uses,
~Tips from nurses, midwives, and professional labor assistants that use the "birth ball",
~And a bibliography

Birth Matters: A Midwife's Manifesta

Renowned for her practice's exemplary results and low intervention rates, Ina May Gaskin has gained international notoriety for promoting natural birth. She is a much-beloved leader of a movement that seeks to stop the hyper-medicalization of birth—which has lead to nearly a third of hospital births in America to be cesarean sections—and renew confidence in a woman's natural ability to birth.
Upbeat and informative, Gaskin asserts that the way in which women become mothers is a women's rights issue, and it is perhaps the act that most powerfully exhibits what it is to be instinctually human. Birth Matters is a spirited manifesta showing us how to trust women, value birth, and reconcile modern life with a process as old as our species.

Birth Reborn

By Michel Odent

Birth Reborn is a good choice for prospective parents. Through it, a woman will develop a confidence in her instinctive, natural ability to give birth. Meanwhile, her partner gains insight into her experience and how he can assist her in the best manner possible. One father commented this book to be the most helpful of all the books he read during his partner’s pregnancy. Though an excellent choice for parents, Birth Reborn should be required reading for those who work with prospective parents, particularly birth attendants. One should never be afraid to question commonly held beliefs. After all, that is how progress is made!

Birthing From Within: An Extra-Ordinary Guide to Childbirth Preparation

By Pam England, & Rob Horowitz
This holistic approach to childbirth examines this profound rite-of-passage not as a medical event, but as an act of self-discovery. Exercises and activities such as journal writing, meditation, and painting are designed to help mothers analyze their thoughts and face their fears during pregnancy. 144 line drawings. 17 photos.

Birthing in the Spirit

by Cathy Daub, Birth Works Press, July 2, 2007.

Many books have been written about the mind and body aspects of birth, but little has been written about the spiritual side of birth. This book is unique in the childbirth literature and introduces a philosophy that can help anyone, including women in birth, to come closer to realizing their full human potential through the practice of human values. An infallible truth about birth is that the knowledge about how to give birth is born within every woman. This means that birth is instinctive and what is instinctive does not need to be taught. Rather, women need to be encouraged to have more trust and faith in their body knowledge that already knows how to give birth. Birthing in the spirit was written to empower birthing women, showing how connecting with the spirit helps birth to become a peak experience, serving as a source of strength during the years of parenting. It was written to help birthing women not be afraid of their own power in labor. It was written for caregivers, doctors, midwives, nurses, and doulas to be more sensitive to the physiological and spiritual needs of a birthing woman. it was written for fathers/partners and anyone in contact with a pregnant woman to realize the importance of keeping her happy during pregnancy, labor, and birth, so she will produce hormones of joy. And finally, it was written so that these hormones of joy can become the first experience of a growing baby.

Breastfeeding Answer Book

The Breastfeeding Answer Book

Skyscape and La Leche League International are pleased to announce the new and exciting release of The Breastfeeding Answer Book - Pocket Guide Edition for your mobile device!

The Breastfeeding Answer Book offers complete and up to date information for those who help mothers breastfeed. This reference can be used as a shortcut to make it easier to locate appropriate techniques and recommended strategies. You can quickly find the answers to the kinds of questions breastfeeding mothers often ask.

Look at all this reference delivers!
-New AAP guidelines on newborn jaundice
-Recent research on the safely of hydrogel pads for sore nipples
-Updated description of reverse pressure softening used to treat engorgement
-Images that help visualize a technique.