The BirthKuwait`s Conference: Birthing With Confidence in the GCC 2014

BirthKuwait is pleased to announce an upcoming Conference: Birthing With Confidence in the GCC, Promoting Maternal and Infant Health Through Training Workshops for Professionals, Community Health Care Workers and Maternal Health Care Advocates, which will take place in October from the 14th to the 18th include:

1. Lamaze Childbirth Education Workshop (5 days Oct 14th-18th)

2. Breastfeeding Counselor Training (4 days, Oct 14th-17th)

3. "Breastfeeding Your Baby" Lactation Educator Workshop (For Professionals Only, 1 day on Oct 18th)

4. DONA Doula Training Workshop (3 days, Oct 16-18). 

For more information check below:
VERY IMPORTANT TO READ
(This document opens in google drive document)
Course Description

Training Workshops are facilitated and approved by renowned international maternal and infant health advocates: Lamaze International, EPI,  DUKE AHEC, DONA, and our local partner FSRI. 


Please fill in the Application Form and e-mail it back to us on the e-mail below.

For details and registration, please visit www.birthkuwait.com or e-mail: info@birthkuwait.com

EXCLUSIVE : Prenatal yoga teacher training course coming soon

Reposted from BirthKuwait
(for registration kindly visit web site BirthKuwait )

For the first time ever, brought to you by BirthKuwait:

Join founder and owner of Blooma, Sarah Longacre and training director Stacy Seebart for Blooma's Level 1 Prenatal Yoga Teacher Training.

How Dilated Am I? Assessing Dilation in Labor WITHOUT an Internal Exam.

Source: Sarah Vine

It’s the magic question weighing on most laboring mothers’ minds: (as well as the minds of her partner or birth attendants!) How much longer? Is there any way to tell how far along I am in the birthing process? I’ve seen mothers beg for an internal exam and then be gutted about the answer (What? ONLY 4cm STILL!?) and suddenly *poof* she looses her resolve. It’s akin to having a test and finding out you’ve failed it, in front of your loved ones as well as complete strangers. Everyone knows this feeling is not conducive to labor – suddenly doubt and fear slide in and the laboring mother feels tense. Her oxytocin levels (our body’s natural pain-killer and labor inducer) take a nose dive and immediately she feels much more pain and she starts to run away from the contractions.

Happily, there are a number of external cues that can help you and birth partners get clued in to how much labor is advancing. Some are more subtle than others, but if you are ignoring the clock and keeping focused on staying in tune with your body, you will see them. Listen, embrace, wait.  Enjoy the way it responds! It is amazing what it can do, this body that God gave you.

1. Sound. The way you talk changes from stage to stage in labor. With the first contractions, you can speak during them if you try, or if something surprises you, or if someone says something you strongly disagree with. You may be getting into breathing and moving and ignoring people – but if you really want to you can raise your head and speak in a normal voice. When the contraction disappears you can chat and laugh at people’s jokes and move about getting preparations done. During established labor, There is very little you can do to speak during a contraction. You feel like resting in between, you are not bothered what people are doing around you. As you near transition and birth, you seem to go to ‘another’ level of awareness – it’s almost like a spiritual hideaway. You may share this with someone else, staring into their eyes with each surge, or you may close them and go into yourself. In between surges you stay in this place. It is imperative for birth assistants and partners to stay quiet and support the sanctity of this space: there are no more jokes, and should be as little small talk as possible. Suddenly, the sounds start to change involuntarily: you may have been vocalizing before (moaning, talking and expressing your discomfort, singing, etc) or you may have been silent. Listen – there are deep gutteral sounds along with everything you have heard before, just slipping in there. You are about to start pushing.

Water birth comes to UAE

Source: Arab News 

By AISHA AL HAJJAR, LIFE.STYLE@ARABNEWS.COM

Published: Jul 6, 2011 09:10 Updated: Jul 6, 2011 09:10

Natural birth enthusiasts are all abuzz about the opening of a new hospital in Al-Ain that will offer birth in a specialized tub. Water births were first introduced in the 1960s and gained significant popularity by the 1990s. At first they were mainly used in the home birth setting, but they are now offered as a choice in many Western hospitals as well.

Dayle had a water birth at home in the US with her second child: “The water was warm and soothing.  The warmth of the birth pool cut the pain of my contractions in half!”

Gertrude had a water birth in Germany with her first child and says, “The best thing was the warm, light feeling inside the water during the expulsion phase, water birth is great!”

Al-Ain Cromwell Women and Children Hospital’s birthing floor should be open next month and has three large birthing rooms, including one with a squatting stool and the first water birth pool in the region!  This is exciting news for the women of Al-Ain and a ray of hope for other areas of the Middle East (including Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt and others) where natural-birth advocates are clamoring for more supportive birthing facilities.

“I’m most excited about their implementation of a midwifery model of care in which women are listened to as individuals and pregnancy is seen as a normal life event,” said Tami Stroud, a professional birth companion. “I have great hope for them. So many women just want a normal, safe, low intervention, natural childbirth and I think Al-Ain Cromwell Women and Children Hospital can deliver that.”

The maternity unit at the new hospital is led by American Midwife, Sandi Blankenship, a water birth expert. 

“In a good hospital, 50 to 60 percent of mothers should be delivered by a midwife,” Blankenship says. In her private midwifery practice in the States she attended over 700 water births. She explains: “It’s important to follow a set protocol to determine which patients are allowed to use the water tub for birth. There also must be standard procedures for handling any complications while birthing in the water.”

10 Celebrity Home Births

10 celebrities opened about their homebirth for Celebritybabyscoop, including Jeniffer Conelly, my favourite actress, who recently had had 3rd baby. Read what they say about homebirth!

As home births become increasingly popular, more and more celebrity moms are opting to have their babies in the comforts of their own home.

From the arrival of Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany's newest addition, daughter Agnes Lark, born via home birth, to Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady's son Benjamin born at their home in December 2009, to Alyson Hannigan and Alexis Denisof's now 2-year-old daughter Satyana born at home, the celebs are joining the trend!

Homebirth and Waterbirth restrictions?

Babble blogs- pregnancy reports following news:

Ladies Hold On To Your Kiddie Pools!

POSTED BY DANIELLE625 ON MAY 26TH, 2011 AT 8:49 PM

Got a kiddie pool in your house?  Watch out!  The FDA may be coming after you!   No… seriously, they might be knocking on your door to seize your unregistered medical device!

No joke!

Water Birth International founder Barbara Harper is no stranger to the on-again, off-again harassment by the FDA, in fact she went a couple rounds back with them in 2000, but now it is being taken to another level.

Currently the FDA has seized all the imported portable birth tubs, and are threatening to destroy them.  Meaning?   Women who have a desire to rent a safe, and sterile birth tub for a home birth, or water birth in another facility will not have this option.

Various Birthing Positions

I came across this article on Science& Sensibility Blog from Lamaze International. The article discuses various birthing positions and their pros/cons.  

"If we limit the discussion of birthing positions to those that can be easily described, classified,  sketched and/or photographed we have quite an array at our disposal:

standing

Sitting variants

Side-lying

Kneeling

Squatting variants (including lap squatting)

Asymmetrical upright positions (standing, sitting or kneeling)

"With so many options available to birthing women why then continue to use a lithotomy / supine /horizontal position?

I highly encourage you to look  for your own answers and do your research. Make your choices which will be best for your and your baby`s  health.