5 Mistakes many new doulas make… And how you can avoid them
Doula work is heart work, it’s a calling that we get and there’s no turning back. For many of us though, when we do our training, we learn the ins and outs about birth, birth settings, physiology, interventions, etc. and if we’re lucky some things about starting a business, and then we launch ourselves into the world full of excitement and passion and ideas….
Postpartum Depletion… A long journey to recovery.
A vulnerable account of my realisation that inadequate postpartum care has had a profound impact on my mothering journey thus far.
Being On Call
I’ve spoken to a few other birth workers lately about the way we manage being/living on call for long periods of time and how important it is to take breaks from on call life from time to time.
I thought I would share a little about what this looks like for those who may not understand, either people wondering what it’s like to be a birth-worker or even wondering what the on call fee is for in your contract…
Si’kulì - An ancient Huichol craft
Some time ago I did a zoom call with a fellow birth worker in Spain who also happens to be a keen crafter and who, like me, enjoys making many of the items she uses in her work herself, by hand. One of the things she had been working on, and teaching workshops in, is the art of the si’kuli (Huichol), or ojo de dios (Spanish), or god’s eye. While I was familiar with this craft, having seen it all over Mexico on my extensive and numerous visits there, and while I had even taught it to children and parents in a multicultural playgroup I used to facilitate in one of my former roles, something about the ones Irene posted about sparked an interest and curiosity in me that I hadn’t explored before.
the Natural hormones of labour
An assignment I wrote some years back while doing my original doula certification course about the hormones involved in a normal physiological labour and birth. A good and easy read for anyone wanting to understand how all these hormones work in the body.
Historical and Cultural background of the Rebozo
Rebozos, shawls, traditional and/or indigenous textiles, woven fabrics and the stories they hold have fascinated me for as long as I can recall. I remember being fascinated by my mother’s woven shawls and when I was learning to sew as a young teenager I was always drawn to the delicate handwoven fabrics, even though they weren’t always the easiest ones to manage. However, my real interest in indigenous and traditional textiles really took off back in 2000 as a young 18-year-old whilst living in Mexico on a yearlong exchange program and immersion into Mexican life and culture. In many ways, that single year changed the course of my life for it was that experience that awoke in me a deep intrigue and curiosity of other cultures and ways of life and the experience of learning a new language through total immersion was one that would lead to several other similar experiences in other parts of the world in the coming years. It was also the beginning of my love affair with Latin America generally but with Mexico…
Raising bilingual and/or multilingual children in Australia
If you’re in Australia and you’re trying to raise children to be truly bilingual or multilingual, you might think this will have purely by osmosis but this is rarely the case. In most instances, for children to acquire similar competency in the community language as they will eventually have in the dominant language (English, in this instance) it requires a consistent and intentional approach on behalf of the parents. Here I talk about some of the approaches you might consider trying on the long journey of raising children to be bilingual and multilingual.