The Postpartum period has long been honored across the globe. There are varying practices according to culture, with the commonality being deep rest. In our North American culture we have been habituated to doing, to productivity, “bouncing back”, rushing back to work. There is an unwritten expectation that we get back to it, the quicker the better - get back to how we were before childbirth. There’s plenty to unwind around this culturally.. and we have a real opportunity to rewrite some of this by working with the physiology of pregnancy and the postpartum period. One of my teachers, Kristin Hauser, speaks to the three golden opportunities we have in our lives as women to set ourselves up in one way or another for the next phase of our lives. Menarche, menopause and the postpartum for birthing women. I’m passionate about honoring the postpartum period. In part due to my own story after the birth of my daughter, which involved both hits and misses. I received the physical care beautifully, especially for those crucial first 40 days. I received witnessing from various care providers which was deeply necessary and healing. And I was left wanting still. I believe in the village Wise Woman, as my elder and teacher Whapio most certainly is. The woman who walks with you through transformation, who listens deeply, reflects you back to yourself and carries the remedies for your ailments, that which will nudge you back to the answers within you. This woman could be your doula, the woman who finds you on your journey in conceiving, through your pregnancy, birth and into the long postpartum that unfolds. I overheard a fellow birth-worker and brilliant homeopath, Carolina Magdalena call this period “postpartum forever”. I laughed, a mixture of agreement and shock at the truth of it. Birth changes us. We don’t go back. We take small steps forward, birthed anew ourselves. And phew is that an experience which contains the deep and the dark, the high and the light. It’s all of it. We’re not supposed to do it in isolation, or alone. Somewhere in our bones we know this, we remember this. Mothers must be deeply nourished - ALWAYS - and especially in the postpartum period .
Working with me in the postpartum encompasses care in a range of emergent ways: birth story integration, placenta readings, compassionate witnessing as you move through new (or new again) motherhood, baby care hands on and/or over the shoulder support, herbal support, preparing meals, light housekeeping, planning for visitors.
Families who work with me during pregnancy and birth will have postpartum preparation included in their package.