Empowering Black Birthgivers!

Throughout history, black women have suffered from medical exploitation, neglect, and mistreatment during childbirth. This has left a long-lasting impact on contemporary healthcare disparities, resulting in higher rates of maternal and newborn mortality and complications among black birthing individuals. Educational initiatives have been taken to address this situation within birth support. These initiatives rely on two primary strategies – acknowledgment and education. With this article, you’ll discover the power of transformational prenatal coaching in empowering black birthgivers and tackling the root cause of the situation – authoritative relationships.

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Birth Support Coaching in Times of Political Unrest

Birth Support professionals are committed to providing essential care and support to pregnant individuals and new parents, helping them navigate the challenges of bringing new life into the world. Pregnancy and postpartum are times of heightened emotions and vulnerability. Amid the current political unrest, the transparent fabric of hope and optimism that subconsciously led our clients to conceive has been interrupted. Staying hopeful and optimistic is less intuitive and demands intentional practice and awareness. At this time, birth support pros must help their clients to repair it.  We must expand our skills to facilitate something beyond proper maternal care; we need to coach to evoke hopefulness and optimism. Transformational Birth Support Coaching Strategies are the path to this type of support.

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Beating the Spooky Thought: Overcoming Fear of Labor Pain

Halloween always makes me think about the spooky creatures individuals are troubled by, such as labor pain, cesarean, irreversible body changes, and dying at birth. The fear of labor pain is a common challenge among expectant persons. After all, the process of childbirth has been for centuries described as one of the most intense, physically demanding, and painful experiences a woman can go through. This perspective overshadows the excitement and joy of bringing a new life into the world. In this blog post, we’ll explore the fear of labor pain as a spooky thought and discuss ways to conquer it, ensuring a more positive and empowered birthing experience.

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Decreasing Labor Induction Rates with Transformational Prenatal Coaching

Birth support pros have been led for decades to believe that informational and emotional support can reduce induction rates. This notion has been supported by certifying organizations, including Lamaze and DONA, and many others. Yet, induction rates have been on the rise since the ARRIVE study. So why are couples educated and informed about inductions, and the rates keep increasing? The common understanding is that decreasing labor induction rates belong to the broader discussion about couples’ informed consent. However, decreasing labor induction rates can be achieved only when we address expectant couples’ beliefs and ongoing need for reassurance of their and their babies health. Addressing the mindset and predetermined beliefs is achieved by Transformational Prenatal Coaching and not by informational and emotional support as previously thought by birth support pros.

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Can Prenatal Coaching Prevent Birth Trauma?

Preventing birth trauma is a much-desired goal, no less than preventing maternal death and reducing cesarean rates. As we have known for many years, birth trauma doesn’t necessarily tie to the unfolding of childbirth but instead relates to how birth givers were treated and how they feel they performed during their birth. Prenatal coaching can increase individuals’ performance levels and empower them to expect patient-centered and respectful care, reducing exposure to birth trauma.

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How to Craft Your SMART Doula New Year Resolution

If you want to begin the new year with a clear, positive, and achievable New Year Resolution, now is the time to start working on it. Whether you focus on personal, relational, or professional goals, crafting your clear and actionable New Year’s Resolution is a process that takes time. And when you master the art of clarifying your goals and visions, you can better serve your birth and postpartum clients by facilitating clarity about their desired experiences and helping them to commit to SMART goals.

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How to Upscale Childbirth Education with Coaching Strategies

Studies show a dramatic drop in attendance of childbirth education classes since 2000. What used to be a right of passage for baby boomers and generation X feels redundant to Millenials. The main reason for the decline is the overwhelming abundance of information on many different platforms. In events and talks, I often say that expectant Millennials rely on Doctor Google, Doctor Facebook, and Doctor YouTube. But can you see how hard it is for them to navigate the preparation process? To distinguish ‘expert’ knowledge from ‘folk knowledge, or myths from reality?’ So how can we serve Millenials and help them avoid informational overload? How can we help them find their truth? How can we empower them to overcome internal resistance and challenges and have healthy and satisfactory birth experiences? Read and learn why  Transformational Birth Support Coaching is the pathway to regaining childbirth instructors’ impact and prestige.

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I Want A Natural Childbirth, But I’m Open To…

Doulas have heard this a hundred times: “I want a natural childbirth but I’m open to the possibility of getting an epidural”.  Labor and Delivery nurses read it on birth plans thousand of times.  

I leave myself open to… the possibility…

This opening can go both ways – it can lead your clients to triumph in moments of doubt and crisis or it can lead them to surrender to the fear and ask for an epidural. 

This opening is where the coaching conversation begins. Coaches in many different fields, such as executive coaching, career coaching, relationships coaching, or lifestyle coaching are searching for this opening. And yet we, birth support professionals, are handed the opening so explicitly. This is our cue to begin to coach. 

How do you engage the client in a powerful, life-changing, and results-oriented conversation, and not miss this amazing opportunity, this opening? How are you going to lead a coaching conversation with this expectant person or birthing individual who ‘leaves themselves open?’ Aren’t you curious to learn about the source of their hesitation – what is interfering with their ability to fully commit to their desired birth experience? Wouldn’t this be valuable to your support process if you understood what is the nature of the circumstances that will make them turn their back to plan A – having a natural childbirth, and choose plan B- asking for pain medication?  

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Coaching Conversations for the Birth Partner’s Soul

You know, you weren’t there when the couple was making their baby. Give them some alone time”. This is what a midwife told me early on when I was a student enrolled in a hospital-based doula training program. This teaching moment could have probably been achieved in a more inspiring way, but I must admit that she made an important point and her words stayed with me throughout my 24 years of practicing as a doula. Over a decade after this lesson, when I enrolled in a yearlong program to become a transformational life coach, I learned another lesson relating to birth partners. I learned that If I coach even as little as two people, I am practicing group coaching and that the coaching conversations must address and resonate with birth partners’ souls.

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Shift Five Common Negative Mindsets with Prenatal Coaching

I have shifted the focus of my birth support toward prenatal coaching and led many birth practitioners to implement this transformational coaching approach into their birth support practice. I’ve noticed five common negative mindsets that expectant individuals may hold throughout my teaching and as I coached my own birth clients. These repeating themes can sabotage birth givers’ birth experiences, even when there is no physiological or anatomical problem. In coaching, we call these negative mindsets limiting beliefs or success blockers. Regardless of individuals’ awareness of their thought processes or beliefs, those run subconsciously like a program you downloaded and installed on your computer unintentionally. And just like a computer program, these negative mindsets may change clients’ attitudes, behavior, and the decisions they make.

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