Stacie Bingham: Birth Support in Kern, Tulare & Kings Counties
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Exploring fears, brick by brick

3/29/2019

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In 2014 I shared an opening activity, What's in Your Head? I use this as a way to help families share their concerns and fears about pregnancy, birth, babies, feeding babies, and becoming parents. It helps folks see they aren't alone in the things that might be keeping them awake at night. 
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​Looking for variation, I recreated this idea with Legos -- little plastic building toys we have amassed numerous buckets of over the years. All of these were pulled from our private collection, although the compromise with my kids was to put them in tiny zippy bags so things wouldn't get lost. The first time I did this activity, I passed the Lego head around and had each person pull out a zippy bag and share what they thought the toys might represent. In my next series, I decided to include a card with a general worry that related to the item in the zippy bag. I had participants look at the item first and see if it reminded them of any concerns they had, and if they were stumped, they could read the card. Then we go around the group and share our items and what they might represent. 

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Spoon Palates: Teaching Infant Oral Anatomy

1/25/2019

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I recently had the opportunity to be part of a training for a local hospital's BFHI process. I wanted a tactile way for people to feel the differences in palate shapes. Needing the models to be comparable to a newborn's mouth-size, I had the idea of using plastic spoons. 
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Day 2: 45 Tips for Successful Blogging

5/1/2017

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I love Sharon and her creativity, and what an idea machine she is! She is great to brainstorm with -- I lay out all my half-baked imaginings, and Sharon helps plug the holes into a complete activity, or she offers an additional use of something I came up with. When I asked her to share in this year's 31 Days, I had a vague idea I tried to (poorly) convey: "...something about motivating yourself to write when it's the last thing you want to do. How do you come up with creative content, over and over and over?" Well Sharon has figured it out. She took that seed of an idea and grew this amazing, inspiring post, sure to help any new or blocked-blogger out there. 

As a birth or postpartum doula, writing blog posts may seem like a lot of extra work for no reward, but I would like to suggest just the opposite. Positioning yourself as an expert on topics that come up during the childbearing year is a great way to establish yourself as an up-to-date professional, attract more business and provide resources to your current clients. Many doulas are hesitant to blog or don’t know how to start or what to write about. I have collated 45 tips, resources and potential topics that you can use to get your professional blogging off the ground or maintain momentum if you already blog.
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  1. Write your blog in manageable and doable chunks of time. Consider setting a timer for a focused 30-minute work session
  2. Bullet point your ideas first to get the creative juices flowing and your main points down. You may not end up using all of them, but it starts the process
  3. Go back and expand the bullet points into paragraphs
  4. Walk away and come back later with fresh eyes and a new perspective
  5. Reward yourself for your hard work with a little treat when you are done
  6. Schedule time for writing blog posts on your calendar just as if it were an appointment with a client
  7. Plan an intro paragraph, two or three paragraphs that go into detail in the body of the post and a concluding paragraph that sums things up nicely
  8. Keep it short - try and limit your blog post to no more than 1200-1500 words
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  1. Five things you want families to know about birth (or postpartum, or breastfeeding or parenting or newborns) before the big day
  2. Your funniest moment as a doula
  3. “I’m the right doula for you if…” and describe the types of clients that work well with you
  4. The item in your birth bag you always use is…(and never use is…)
  5. Tips from a doula for a local hospital - (i.e., best parking, yummy food, items in nourishment room, tools available {squat bar, yoga mats, peanut balls, etc.} partner sleep accommodations and more)
  6. How you handle the on-call life
  7. Share a great birth story (with parents’ permission of course)
  8. Review a recent continuing education event or conference you attended and how you are going to apply it to your practice
  9. Birth or parenting book or movie review
  10. Top baby items parents need (or the top items they think they need but don’t)
  11. Interview a local professional of interest to parents (pediatrician, lactation consultant, etc.)
  12. Favorite recipe for a labor or postpartum food (labor smoothie, lactation cookies etc.)
  13. Top power foods to eat during labor
  14. Collate interesting blog posts and highlight them in a post summary on your blog similar to what doula and educator Andrea Lythgoe does
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  1. Use Grammarly or other free software to check your grammar and spelling before hitting publish
  2. Give your blog post a great snazzy title to attract readers
  3. Use images to make your blog post visually appealing
  4. Be sure your blog post looks good and is readable on mobile devices and tablets
  5. Credit photos appropriately
  6. Make sure selected image sizes work for Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest
  7. Consider using gender neutral terms to welcome all pregnant people
  8. Respond to comments on your blog post and social media promptly to engage readers
  9. Keep a running list for future blog post ideas as you find them
  10. If you are citing sources or research, include the citation at the bottom of the blog
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  1. Flickr.com
  2. Pixabay.com
  3. Photosforclass.com
  4. Morguefile.com
  5. Freeimages.com
  6. Google images (click on usage rights to select only copyright free images)
  7. Wikimedia
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  1. Blog regularly - try once a week or twice a month routinely
  2. Keep your blog post short and to the point
  3. Share promptly on your social media platforms
  4. Routinely check links and resources on previous posts to be sure they still are current and working
  5. Consider being a guest blogger on someone else’s blog or doing a blog exchange for a new voice and additional exposure
  6. Invite colleagues and readers to participate in a blog carnival
Blogging can create new business opportunities for you and helps you share your expertise with other professionals, potential clients and the general public. It doesn’t have to take up lots of time or even be done every week. A regular and informative blog can help you to highlight your skills and can be fun to write.  I challenge you to write a post and email me with a link, I will be sure to circle back to your blog and leave a comment! I look forward to reading what you have written.

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Sharon Muza, BS, CD(DONA) BDT(DONA), LCCE, FACCE, CLE has been an active childbirth professional since 2004, teaching Lamaze classes to over a thousand families and providing doula services to more than 450 expectant families through her private practice in Seattle, Washington. She is an instructor at the Simkin Center, Bastyr University where she is a birth doula trainer. Sharon is also a trainer with Passion for Birth, a Lamaze-Accredited Childbirth Educator Program. In 2015, Sharon was awarded Lamaze International’s Media Award for promoting safe and healthy birth. Sharon has been an engaging speaker at international conferences on topics of interest to birth professionals and enjoys collaborating with others to share ideas and information that benefit birth professionals and families. You can find Sharon blogging on Lamaze International’s Science & Sensibility and DONA International’s DONA Doula Chronicles. To learn more about Sharon, you are invited to visit her website, SharonMuza.com.

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Comfort Tools In the Hospital Room

2/17/2017

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There is such emphasis on what to bring to the hospital -- you can find a hundred lists on Pinterest and other places. While we try to anticipate what a laboring person will need, inevitably, something may be forgotten. Here's a handy list of things you may already have access to simply because you are in the hospital.

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​1-Gift shop suckers: I was at a birth recently where the laboring person wasn't able to eat real food (it was "clear liquids" time), but her baby wasn't being as reactive as we would like. She needed a hit of sugar, yet the applesauce, chocolate pudding, and yogurt she brought no longer qualifed. The nurse asked, "Do you have any hard candies?" Well, we didn't. Being resourceful, I excused myself and ran down to the gift shop and purchased a handful of suckers. Not only were these helpful to keep the laboring person's mouth moist, they gave her body a small boost of energy, and they helped her cope as sucking releases endorphins which have pain-relieving properties.

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​2-Tray table as peanut ball: Many of us know and love our peanut balls. Before these were handy and readily available, we could use the rolling tray table, common to every hospital room, to help get a laboring person into an open-hips position while in bed. I wish I had a picture of this, because while peanut ball pictures are easy to find, tray-tables-as-peanut-ball pictures are not -- hence my offering! The laboring person lies on their side, with pillows under and around the belly, and also some wedged in to support the back. The tray table is adjusted to a height that gives the right amount of open-hip-ness, with another couple pillows to help the laboring person feel comfortable versus having their top leg feeling like it is, actually, laying on a table.

3-Sheets as rebozos: Rebozos are a useful tool not all parents may know where to acquire. There is a secret, though: in a pinch, a hospital sheet, folded just right, can work very well! For belly-lifting, sifting, of hip-rump vibration (shake the apple tree) fold length-wise to leave a width of about 30 inches. Here's a hint: from the tip of my nose to the extension of my arm/hand/fingers (holding my left arm out mostly, since I am right-handed?) is almost a yard; a yard is 36 inches. I know to make my folds just a little shorter than this distance. When it comes time to push, a sheet can be wrapped around a squat bar to help the pushing person have more leverage by pulling the sheet toward them. ​
​4-Washcloths for moist heat: Sometimes you just need some heat! Take that giant plastic dish-pan thing and fill with hot water (the water from the sink in the room often gets pretty warm). Find a washcloth or two and alternate them -- one where the laboring person needs it -- often on their back -- and the other in the pan. Switch them as needed, refilling the hot water as it cools. Of course I don't need to add remember safety measures here -- especially if the person has an epidural and cannot feel the area where the cloth is being used. 
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​5-Cold pack ideas: Often laboring people want cold instead of hot. Consider using a non-latex glove filled with that lovely pearled ice often found in hospitals! The pellets easily scoot into the glove, which can be tied off and offered on one's back, or that grinding area in the front of the pelvis often bothered by a baby in a posterior position. Using that handy plastic pan again, fill it with some ice and water and get a couple soda cans. Pull one out to roll or press against the laboring person's back. When the can warms up, swap it out for the other one. Something else that works is one of those pads they offer after birth that stays cold; if you activate one of those, and run it under water for a few seconds, it feels really cold and maintains that coolness for a while.
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6-Newborn diaper for padsicle: While most hospitals do have those cooling pads for the perineum after birth, a trick I learned from working for a hospital-based midwifery practice is to grab a newborn diaper, cut it open at the back and run my hand through the top layer of mesh, and then pour in some of that lovely pellet ice. The midwives I worked with preferred this to the regular self-cooling pads -- and the diaper absorbed the water as the ice melted. A newborn diaper fits pretty well into that mesh underwear if you are low on pads or you haven't found them large enough to handle the many directions lochia seems to be able to flow. 

​Every doula learns her own tricks according to the laboring person's needs, the hospital's set up, and the nurses' suggestions. It's always a good idea to ask before you go searching in drawers and cupboards. But I have found, if you have a need or an idea, the staff is supportive of out-of-the-box ways to comfort someone in labor. What has worked for you?
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Comfort at Any Stage

9/13/2016

 
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Recently for the Bakersfield BirthNetwork, I was presenting on comfort measures for birth. Expectant families, as well as doulas, come to these gatherings, and I love being able to offer information that is not only helpful to parents, but also information other professionals can take to their clients! As a Lamaze-certified Childbirth Educator, I am always putting together ideas in an unusual way to help make learning about birth fun!

The inspiration for this started when I had a few ideas I wanted to squish together into an activity:
1. Update the stages of labor to reflect an additional pre-labor phase at the onset of the first stage
2. Scaffold the stages/phases of labor by choosing and practicing supports meant to intertwine with the key emotional and physical events occurring
3. Provide a handout which not only helps visualize the opening of first stage, but also serves as a cheat sheet to labor happenings, timing, and ways to cope

What I came up with, I call the "Spinning Circles of Womb." Just kidding, I don't. But I think it works, and it's pretty simple, and that's all that counts -- no frilly title needed. Basically, here are the supplies: 
  • items/ideas that comfort
  • items that encourage art
  • non-negotiable for this activity are 4 circles measuring 3cm, 6cm, 8cm, and 10cm, tacked together with a metal fastener 
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I can't remember a time when I sat participants at a table, but for this activity we did, indeed, sit at a table. Surrounded by Mr. Sketch Markers, paper circles, and stickers, I began to share the stages of labor by tacking three sheets of (laminated) paper onto the wall. There is relief when an expectant parent realizes there are only three stages of labor (I did have a dad once who suggested there were 14, but that was his lucky number, and I asked him to take a guess!).

Three. That's not hard to remember, right?

​Then I tack up two more papers, which you can see below, right. I share how some genius decided to break the first stage of labor up into phases, which is another word for, let's just insert more stages into this stage and call it good. 
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On the front of the circles we write things like average length of that phase, approximate cervical dilation achieved, contraction action, and more (note: I don't show all of that in the picture). The pinnacle of this is affixing the face sticker to the appropriate phase​, as a handy visual reminder of what a laboring person might be feeling in that moment. 

While we are moving through the phases with markers and stickers, we are also brainstorming what comfort measures might be beneficial at what time, and those are added to the back of that circle. We practice these comfort measures as we go. If we expect people to feel comfortable with different physical ways to counter the strong sensations of labor, we can't expect them to get there from a picture alone! Would you step into a ballroom, ready to dance in front of judges, simply from pictures you saw in a book? We need to actually show families what these positions and movements look like, how they feel, and when they help -- or they are of no help at all.
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I use marker to write on laminated sheets as needed; I also include a wheel of what helps in labor.
​At the close of this activity, families walk away with their concentric circles of information, a piece of pool noodle, and an information sheet which shows about 20 different physical positions of a laboring person and partner working together.

Not a bad way to merge my three goals! A handy takeaway that can be utilized easily during birth.

Building Your Own Doula: An Activity for Classes

8/28/2016

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I'm a doula. I love what I do, and I am really good at it. It is always an honor to help a family through birth by offering physical, informational, and emotional support unique to their situation. And I also recognize, as a certified Lamaze educator teaching families in the Bakersfield and Visalia areas, there are many reasons why a family might choose NOT to employ the services of a doula. These reasons might range from cost, to comfort, to hospital rules. In this situation, I want pregnant people to know how to shape their partner or other birth supporters into a doula. 

What are the advantages of a doula? How is she different than a partner, BFF, mom, etc.? She has no agenda or investment in this birth experience except to help a laboring person feel supported and know their options. 

What are the advantages of the partner, BFF, mom, etc.? You know this person better than anyone in the room. You know the likes and dislikes, the history and beliefs of this person, and you will be around after the baby is born.

I often open this topic by asking each person to tell me something he or she knows about the person they have come with. I like this activity because it shows there will be professionals surrounding this birthing family, and while the professionals will know all the medical "stuff," the partners will know the pregnant person better than anyone in the hospital. Labor support is not rocket science. When you know what a pregnant person likes and dislikes, when you know what care this person would appreciate when sick or stressed, when you know what relaxes and what tenses -- this puts you in a prime position as a supporter, and suddenly you have something just as important as the professionals around you. By sharing things they know about each other ("She loves rocky road ice cream," "He hates his head touched") they see already they are armed and ready to doula their loved one. 
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​I make goodie bags for all the families. They are filled with objects that symbolize a trait, activity, or way to support someone in labor. 
  • Ladybug Straw: stay hydrated; bugs remind us of germs and the need to wash our hands, put a towel on the birth ball, put shoes on when walking, etc.
  • Tissue with Yoda on one side, R2D2 and C-3PO on the other: Yoda's "Do or do not, there is no try," for encouraging words, peace through The Force, learning from the master (who's the master???); the droids represent friendship/partnership, C-3PO interprets what R2D2 says like a partner can interpret what a laboring person needs
  • Plastic Frog: all fours position for labor or pushing, staying active and changing positions,  change/metamorphism (if it's not working, change it up)
  • Sucker: be sweet as you offer support, it's wrapped up like a baby in a pregnant belly, it can provide pressure to a receptor spot on the roof of the mouth which released endorphins, and a reminder to eat while in labor
  • Ring Squirter: use of hydrotherapy -- shower, tub, ice
  • Gold Medal: treat laboring person as a champion with lots of verbal reminders, and be a cheerleader
  • Gum: it smells good (reminder to use comfort scents), partner is not allowed to have bad breath, it "sticks together" like partner and pregnant person
  • Watch: of course we time contractions to help us know where in labor we might be, reminder to "watch" the pregnant person and not the machines or the clock
  • Head Band: this can bring comfort for unruly hair, it can also remind us this is an athletic event
  • Whistle: blow stress away, there may be loud noises, and as a support person, "don't blow it!" 
  • The Princess bags: If there ever was a day a person should be treated like royalty, it's the day you birth your baby!

When you love doulas, believe in their benefits, and are a professional doula yourself, it can be hard for class participants to feel you are unbiased on the subject (even if you are a professional childbirth educator, as well). I feel by offering an activity like this, you can show there are many different ways to create a birth support team -- and with anticipatory expectations of what a laboring person's needs are -- that doesn't have to include a doula.
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Don't Touch My Stuff!  Toys for Birth Doulas & Educators

1/8/2015

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I have lots of fun goodies I use as an educator and doula. Sometimes these look like toys, and sometimes they are purchased in the toy section, but I promise, they are not toys, they are props.

What's the difference? How do Hot Wheels track pieces change from toy to prop once absconded from my kid's room and placed in my childbirth ed supplies? What changes a kitchen utensil to an educational model? Dollar Tree junk to demonstration delight? 

One word:
Here is a sampling of toys, and how I use them!

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I love these funnels! Cervical dilation and effacement can be understood better with this kind of model -- the small end is about 1 cm, and is long, while the other end, closer to 10 cm, is flat. I got these at Target!

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These are stretchy body parts I got at Cost Plus. They represent a few senses, and as we absorb sensations through all our senses, this is a good way to talk about that. I also have a mouth (taste), and glasses with springy eyeballs (sight) to represent the remaining two senses. 

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Back massage in labor or to practice in class! Yes, it's a dog chewie! I purchased this at WalMart. 

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Toy stacker, from IKEA! I have used this in personal childbirth classes, on a kitchen table of coffee table, to illustrate the cascade of interventions. 

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Babies, of course! IKEA
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Playing "how long do you think this stage of labor lasts? Goodwill
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Balls to represent tummy size. Dollar Tree
And my current favorite! This was an impulse buy when I stopped into a local store, Planet Bambini. I had to have it! I can't wait to use it! It would be great to help a sibling understand basics of how babies grow. Am I the only one who could imagine a contest between birth partners in a childbirth class -- maybe teams -- to see who can assemble all the layers the fastest? 
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One thing's for certain, it isn't going into the toybox at home! I let my little guy (21 months old) play with it, heavily supervised, for about 30 minutes, before I packed it up and put it back in its box.  I know, I've got problems, you say -- it is, after all, a kid's puzzle! I own my issues. Just like we encourage when it comes to precious personal objects:  it's my special toy and I don't want to share it.

I added links to similar posts...
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Your Brain Shapes Your Pain

11/23/2014

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As I compose this, my washer is going full-steam-ahead with a vomit-covered, king-size comforter in it, my 8 year old lies on a well-protected couch (his bowl on the towel-covered ottoman), and Kipper -- a long ago forgotten, feel-good kid show -- streams on the TV. 

My little guy is sick. 

Standing vigil with him last night, I was reminded we can make our pain worse or we can make it better, and a lot of that power lies in our brains. Like many of us, he doesn't enjoy being sick. He tried to rest, but when his stomach started to rumble, he grew restless, rocking his legs back and forth with anxiety and anticipation. Not wanting to wash any more linens, I encouraged him to move to the bathroom, where he would pace back and forth in front of the toilet in his attempts to avoid the inevitable. 

"I don't like to throw up," he said, tears sliding off his cheeks. 

"I know." I gently rubbed his back. I wasn't sure how much of his pain was from his stomach, and how much was from his brain. Sure, he was coping, yet he was also masterfully avoiding his body's natural impulses to move through this illness. Fear -- he was scared.

"When you worry so much about being sick, it can make your body feel worse. I think if you can take deeper breaths and try to let your arms and legs be lazy and heavy, then you can really hear what your stomach is saying." We both sat on the edge of the bathtub as I mirrored the deeper breathing and lazy legs while continuing with my fingers on his back. 

We repeated this ritual many times in the night, and a shift occurred: knowing he could calm parts of his body and mind led him to feel more secure in what was actually happening in his tummy. He was able to better feel the illness, as it would come and then go, and this helped him rest in-between.

See any similarities to labor here? 

Really what this describes is the fear-tension-pain cycle. In my classes we demonstrate this with a very long piece of elastic tied in a knot -- like a very, very long piece (10 yards?). I offer it to three different participants, so when held, it makes a giant triangle in the middle of our classroom. I then assign each of the three to be either "fear," "tension," or "pain," and have them relax their arms so the elastic falls to the ground, and we read over a few situations. As one trigger point becomes activated, that person pulls back on his or her piece of the triangle, then the next trigger is activated, and we see the result when the third person has to hold his elastic tightly to prevent it slipping from his hands. As we get to the problem-solving part, that person relaxes his or her part of the triangle, until it is loose and dragging the floor again. 

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"Mary is laboring at home. During her contractions she leans over her dresser and her partner applies pressure to her lower back. She would say her pain level during contractions is a 3-4, and she feels she is coping well. Soon she reaches the point where it is time to go to the hospital. She and her partner gather their things and head to the car."  


"As they leave their house, Mary has a contraction. Her pain feels suddenly worse, about an 8 or 9. Her body stiffens against the sensation. She worries her labor is picking up. Processing 100 things at once, her mind is overwhelmed with fear: Will she make it to the hospital or will the baby be born in the car? If she makes it to the hospital, how will she ever be able to cope without medications if things feel like this right now? Will her plans for birth be scrapped, all the preparation, her desires, be for nothing?"
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What's going on here? And how can we short-circuit the fear-tension-pain cycle? The biggest difference is, Mary's coping strategy has changed -- she is no longer upright and mobile, being comforted by her partner's hands. Now she is sitting, strapped into the car, and on her way to the hospital. 

A change in the level of PAIN, brought TENSION to her body, and FEAR about the future. Mary's partner can help her through this verbally -- reminders to relax and release tension, seatbelt caused hindered mobility,  labor not necessarily picking up but changing sensation from changing position, etc. Relaxing can reduce the TENSION, while knowing this information can speak to the FEAR, thus helping to change the intensity of the PAIN, interrupting the cycle.

Let's look at another situation (without the pictures -- as a side, I am currently reading Unfolding the Napkin, and I decided to follow the author's advice about processing visual information and creating my own pictures :)). Mary is now in the hospital. She is coping well by sitting on a birth ball and rocking through her contractions. She hears a scream down the hall and suddenly she has a FEAR response; consequently, she TENSES, and her PAIN increases. What can help here? 

Address the FEAR with words. Remind the woman, just as she has a birth team taking care of her, the lady down the hall also has professionals aware of her situation. The screaming might not actually have anything to do with a level of pain or danger -- it may just be how that lady chooses to cope, maybe she is just a screamer? Hands-on touch can offer physical reminders to relieve TENSION in areas of her body, and her PAIN level can go back to where it was before her scare.

My little one is on the mend, the laundry is done, and I got a nap this afternoon. Watching him struggle was intense as a mom, just as it is when we are with laboring moms. It was an amazing tool to offer him, navigating through his own experience of the F-T-P cycle, by helping him recognize ways to make himself feel better in his body, by simply using his head. 
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Cascade of Interventions AKA Magic Nesting Boxes

9/23/2014

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The Cascade of Interventions is a typical topic covered in childbirth classes. I don't want to say it's like the Domino Theory of Communism,a logical fallacy known as "slippery slope," but it...it kind of is. As moms, doulas, educators, and birth workers, we often can recall someone's "cascade of interventions" story. The important thing when it comes to teaching is to help students understand that the use of an intervention doesn't mean a woman is fated to the "next" likely step -- with education and awareness, she and her partner can be work to avoid the common pitfalls a specific intervention might bring. Basics:

  • I like to use story-telling in many childbirth education activities. Roger C. Shank, a cognitive scientist, said: "Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic; they are ideally set up to understand stories." I feel this is an effective way to help participants relate and remember bits of information, versus throwing factoids at them. 
  • I have a set of 12 boxes, that when stacked reach over my head (and I am 5'5"). I bought them at Costco about 7 years ago with this activity in mind.
  • I have a 12-step story with each step written on its own slip of paper. The first part of the story is in the smallest box. Step two is in the next size up box, etc. I put these under students' chairs before class.
  • Parents offer their boxes as size/story dictates, read their part of the story, then stack their box. In reverse-size order we see how even though the small box was no big deal, as the stack increases, it starts to teeter, and it might even fall. I ask a partner to be in charge of holding the stack up while we finish the activity.
  • This story starts with the tiniest box in my nesting collection, and it is a benign "intervention," one we might not even consider when looking for offenders: external fetal monitoring. The story ends with breastfeeding being interrupted -- of course the worst thing we generally think of within the context of normal birth situations is cesarean birth; I felt that was an obvious choice. When it comes to cesarean birth, I feel it can be easy for participants to think, "That won't be me," whereas breastfeeding interference seems an idea we can open our ears to.


The story I use:
  1. EFM: Jamie arrives at the hospital at 3 cm woth contractions about 5 minutes apart. Jamie's coping method is bouncing/swaying on the ball. Once in her room the nurse wants to get a reading on her baby and requests 30 minutes of EFM to get a 'baseline" on baby.
  2. limited mobility; increased pain/anxiety Jamie's limited mobility means she is no longer able to sit on the ball through her contractions. Her contractions become more intense, and this starts the F/T/P cycle.
  3. pain medication request (Stadol) Jamie is scared about how she can cope with labor if it is going to get worse. She decides she wants to try an analgesic pain medication, which can be given as a shot.
  4. labor stalls Jamie finds although the medication takes away some of the pain, her labor has stalled.
  5. pitocin to speed things up; IV Jamie now needs pitocin to get into an active labor pattern. This means she will have an IV as well.
  6. epidural request As the pitocin increases the strength of her contractions, she experiences F/T/P cycle again. She requests an epidural.
  7. blood pressure drops Jamie's blood pressure drops in response to the epidural.  
  8. medication for blood pressure Jamie gets meds to counter low blood pressure.
  9. maternal fever Jamie has a fever, which could be from the epidural.
  10. OFP affected; baby born via vacuum Since Jamie was not able to be more active, her baby has not had help moving and rotating into an optimal position and needs the vacuum to be born.
  11. baby has fever; sent for observation, possible septic work-up Baby has a fever at birth and needs to be taken to the nursery for observation and possible tests. Jamie and her baby are separated for 6 hours.
  12. separation/breastfeeding affected Breastfeeding is affected.


The bolded statements are being recorded on a large sheet of paper as we read along. After the activity with the boxes, we go through the list and discuss what can be done to avoid or minimize the effects from a specific intervention. This is also the time I hand out basic info sheets about common interventions. 

I hope I included everything? If you have questions, ask! And please "like" my Facebook page to stay up-to-date on the teaching tips I share.

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Make a Mini Pelvis/Baby Kit

9/15/2014

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In celebration of getting my DONA recertification in the mail, I decided to challenge myself to see if I could make this creatively and frugally. 

This morning I went to Wal-Mart to peruse the Halloween decorations, thinking there had to be a usable pelvis from a skeleton I could use. I found one I thought would work -- and only one, really, out of all the decorations. I live in a small town, and Wal-Mart is just about all we have; I would have checked other places if I lived with more options, because although this one worked, I would have liked to see more samples. That was the only thing I purchased -- everything else I had around the house.


Materials List:
skeleton with a pelvis
embroidery floss
orthodontic rubber band
needle/thread
fabric
baggie
tape
baby that fits the pelvis
baby sock for uterus

I would use something else for the amnion, but I was grabbing things I had in my house -- nylons might work? Also I would use a newborn's sock, not an 18 months old's sock, for the uterus...you could also knit one. 

If you have questions, let me know! It took me about an hour from start to finish! And it could save you 70+ dollars! Sorry the order is off -- putting them in order this way on the computer makes the mobile version easier to view.

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Stacie Bingham, LCCE, CD(DONA), CBS(LER)

Calm, comfortable Lamaze education & experienced support for pregnancy, birth, & breastfeeding serving Bakersfield, Delano, Hanford, Porterville, Tehachapi, Tulare, Visalia + the World

​661.446.4532 stacie.bing@gmail.com
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