by MotherWit | Jan 4, 2010 | Uncategorized
Motherwit Intensive Doula Training Retreat
When: July 18th to 23rd, 2010
Where: The location for our training will be in a large, comfortable home in Morin Heights, located in the beautiful Laurentians of Quebec, about an hour from Montreal.
Who: This training is for those women who want to pursue a career in supporting women in birth. This can either serve as a complete professional training as a doula, as a stepping stone towards a career in midwifery, nursing, or medicine, or as continuing education for those who are already working with birthing women and want to enrich their practices. Even those women who are already working as doulas will find this training exceptionally beneficial.
What is a doula? A doula is a woman who provides supportive care to women and their families throughout the childbearing year. The woman’s primary caregiver (her doctor or midwife) is responsible for her clinical wellbeing, meaning the monitoring of her and her baby’s health is carried out by them. Doulas provide the missing link in modern maternity care, which is the nurturing of the pregnant/birthing/postpartum woman. In order to feel satisfied with her childbearing experience, a mother needs to have been treated with love and respect, to have felt heard, to have been honoured.
Doulas offer the mother and her partner time in which to ask questions, vent their frustrations, express their concerns, clarify their values about birth and parenting, providing them with information, preparatory education, supportive physical and emotional comfort, and advocacy of their needs and desires.
Doulas accompany the woman thoughout labour and birth, and facilitate the transition into motherhood. Her partner also benefits tremendously from a doula’s support. With a doula taking care of many of the small things required in birth, the partner can relax and be fully present for the labouring mom in the way they see fit.
Doulas also provide postpartum care by supporting the unique breastfeeding relationship between mother and child, and by smoothing some of the inevitable bumps along the untravelled road.
The doula is a complementary member of the woman’s healthcare team. She empowers a woman to make informed choices about her care, and then supports those unique choices. She serves as a resource for many of the woman’s needs. A doula never diagnoses or assumes clinical care of her client. All health concerns are required to be brought to the attention of the primary caregiver.
Why: Motherwit Doula Training provides training above and beyond what is taught in popular, weekend workshop format courses. Not only do we study the pregnancy, birthing, and postpartum process and ways to support it in all kinds of settings, but you will learn a myriad of tools to work holistically with your clients. You will learn, for example, how to help a woman deal with the sensations of labour, how to navigate your way though a challenging hospital system without creating conflict, how to care for yourself as you care for others, how to run your doula business, how to build community for new mothers and other doulas, and most importantly, how, in your own unique, loving, authentic way, to contribute to the healing of our North American birth culture one mother, father, and baby at a time.
How: The week long format will allow you to immerse yourself in the world of doula work. By living in close quarters with other women, we will be in community, sharing chores, meals, and babycare. This is traditionally how women learn, not in a shiny classroom with a teacher at the head, but in a circle, multitasking and sharing, within an environment surrounded by beauty. We are allowed to share anecdotes, heal through storytelling, tell bawdy jokes, be free with our emotions, all the while doing in depth, intense and often technically complicated study of supporting birth.
You will be given a study guide annotating important learnings, as well as a checklist to help you fulfill your requirements outside of class. These requirements must be finished within a year of taking this training in order to be certified as a Motherwit Doula, otherwise extra fees will be incurred. Upon completion of certain requirements, you will be eligable for a 3 birth apprenticeship period with Lesley or another Motherwit Doula, if you so desire, at an additional cost.
Details: As doulas promote attachment parenting whenever possible, nursing babies are always welcome to attend trainings with their mothers. For very attached toddlers, mothers may bring a childcare provider with them in order to allow her to study thoughout the day. Caregivers and other children are welcome to join us for breaks and meals. The house can comfortably accommodate about 12 people, but there is another house nearby available if extra space is needed for those who are bringing children and support people. Birth video and storytelling time are not mandatory, but are an enriching experience for participants, and encouraged whenever possible.
There will be plenty of time to ask questions and share experiences, so Lesley asks that we allow the teaching to flow according to its schedule as much as we can in order to cover the massive amounts of information you will be learning. Burning questions will always be answered.
Please feel free to leave or wander the room in order to meet the needs of fussy babies.
Cost: The cost will depend upon the number of participants, the maximum amount being 15. Five and under participants will cost $1200, 6 to 10 participants will cost $1050, and 10 to 15 will cost $950. If accommodation is required, the cost is $200 per trainee, which includes your sleeping quarters, as well as breakfast, lunch, and snacks. If you are bringing a partner/caregiver with you as well, there will be an additional cost of $100 for their accommodation and meals.
Dinner will be provided by participants. Dinner and cleanup duty will be required on one of the workshop evenings. Meals can be prepared in advance and brought frozen from home, or you can bring groceries to make a dish at the house. We ask that you make extra in order to stock the freezer of the very lovely and generous 93 year old lady who is allowing us to use her home for this training.
There will be a non refundable $25 registration fee. Upon being accepted into this program (an interview is required, in person if possible, if not, by phone is fine), you will be asked to send a deposit of $550 to Motherwit Doula Training. If you are unable to attend and have to cancel before June 15th, your deposit will be refunded fully, or, if you wish, applied as credit towards future trainings or services. If you cancel after June 15th, $400 will be refunded to you. The remainder of the fee will be absolutely due the day the training begins. Once all participants are registered, we will let you know what the exact amount will be. Payments can be made by Interac Email Transfer, Money Order, PayPal, or Cash (upon arrival at training).
Outline
Day 1: July 18th
9:00am to 1:00pm
Introductions
Normal Pregnancy, Birth and Breastfeeding Anatomy and Physiology
2:00pm to 5:00pm
Profile of a Doula
Comparing Mainstream vs. Doula views of Prenatal Education, Birth Support, and Postpartum Support
The Doula’s Role in Holding Pain in the Childbearing Year
The Doula as a Change Agent of Modern Birth Culture
6:30pm to 8:00pm
Dinner and clean up
8pm-10pm
Birth video, discussion
Day 2: July 19th
9:00am to 1:00pm
The Doula’s Toolkit: An Overview of Holistic Healing Modalities
Before continuing with our work in doula support, we will explore some of the tools doulas use to facilitate a smoother childbearing year. We will look at healing from different points of view, and study energy anatomy, nourishment, breath, herbs, and essential oils. We will be touching, smelling, and tasting, listening to what these medicines have to tell us.
2:00pm to 5:00pm
The Doula’s Toolkit: An Overview of Holistic Healing Modalities Continued
Homeopathy, touch, emotional processing, intuition, guided imagery, and ceremony will be explored as ways to help create more clarity for the woman in her childbearing year, allowing her greater access to her internal resources. We will do exercises which will demonstrate each modality, and create opportunities for you to learn about yourselves as well.
6:30pm to 8:00pm
Dinner and cleanup
8:00pm to 10:00pm
Birth videos and storytelling
Day 3: July 20th
9:00am to 1:00pm
Principles of Fetal Positioning
Palpation
Doula Support for Normal Pregnancy
Doula Support for Normal Labour and Birth
We will be using real live bellies for palpation, and will do hands-on labour support using the tools we learned on Day 2. We will also learn about tools birth clinicians use to monitor the mother and baby’s wellbeing.
2:00pm to 5:00pm
Doula Support for Normal Labour and Birth Continued
Doula Support for Normal Breastfeeding
Nursing babies are asked to show off their skills for demonstration
6:30pm to 8:00pm
Dinner and cleanup
Evening Off
Day 4: July 21st
9:00am to 1:00pm
Doula Support for Pregnancy and Birth Challenges
We will discuss common pregnancy/birth challenges, and discuss the benefits, risks, and alternatives to common treatments. Special situations like breech birth, VBAC, and multiple birth will also be discussed
Grace Under Fire: Using Diplomacy to Deal with Challenging Hospital Routines and Staff
6:30pm to 8:00pm
Dinner and cleanup
8:00pm to 10:00pm
Birth videos and storytelling
Day 5: July 22nd
9:00am to 1:00pm
Birth as Teacher, Birth as Healer
We will discuss Birth as an energy which both teaches and heals, as well as explore some of our own fears about birth.
Loss and Grief
Doula Support for Breastfeeding and Postpartum Challenges
2:00pm to 5:00pm
Doula Support for Breastfeeding and Postpartum Challenges Continued
Role Playing
6:30pm to 8:00pm
Dinner and cleanup
8:00pm to-10:00pm
Talking stick and discussion of how you’d like to share your new skills in your community.
Day 6: July 23rd
9:00am to 1:00pm
Caring for Yourself as a Doula
Creating Boundaries
Dealing With Challenging Clientelle
Conducting Your Pre/Post Natal Meetings
2:30pm to 5:00pm
Managing Your Doula Practice: Payment, Paperwork, and Publicity
A Doula Rite of Passage Ceremony
On this last day, we will take a longer lunch period to ensure we are packed up and ready to leave after class has ended. We will finish up at 5pm.
About the Motherwit Trainer: Lesley Everest has been a doula for 16 years. She is a mother of four children. She has provided professional doula training for nearly seven years.
Lesley brings to her doula and training work nearly two decades of education and practice in holistic healing. She is a certified Polarity practitioner, a certified Pre-Perinatal Massage Practitioner, professionally trained in Psychosynthesis Psychotherapy, and a former La Leche League Leader. She has attended hundreds of women thoughout their childbearing and mothering experiences.
Her doula practice includes approximately 50 to 65 births per year, and between 4 and 12 apprenticeships per year. She is the founder and director of Motherwith Doula Care Services.
Future projects include providing doula training to nurses and medical students/residents, and writing a doula’s guide to childbirth.
For an application or for further info please email info@motherwit.ca
by MotherWit | Jan 2, 2010 | Uncategorized
Ultrasound is very worrisome to me. Most people having babies think about ultrasound as the scan or scans a technician does to date the pregnancy, measure the baby, determine the sex, etc. What studies have shown, and this is all over the ‘net so you can look this up yourselves, is that ultrasound potentially shakes things around in the fetal brain, to put it technically. But what a lot of people don’t realize is that electronic fetal monitoring in hospital during non-stress tests, labour, etc. is ALSO ultrasound. If these studies are being done and we are being warned about repetitive, routine ultrasound scans (on average a woman here receives around 3 ultrasounds per pregnancy, from what I’ve observed of my clientele…some have less, some have one almost every doctor’s visit), I think it’s important to inform consumers the monitoring they are receiving throughout labour might have risks too.
When a woman receives an epidural and/or synthetic oxytocin during labour, she is constantly monitored, and this can often leave her baby exposed to ultrasound for many consecutive hours. Considering the epidural rate is incredibly high for first time mothers in hospitals, in the high 90th percentile, this means the vast majority of fetuses are being exposed to ultrasound that we don’t have evidence is safe. Even mothers who are birthing naturally are still exposed to occasional 20 minute stints of monitoring.
Becaue of a few things I’ve seen, I don’t reject ultrasound as a tool at all. There have been a couple of sad incidents I’ve known where had just one scan been done to have a look at the baby, information would have been easily revealed that would have given caregivers knowledge of the babies’ treatable conditions before it was too late. I personally had one scan with 3 out of 4 of my pregnancies. While I know ultrasound is not the be all and end all of diagnostic tools, a basic peek makes me feel reassured. To have a listen to my babies prenatally, the midwives and doctor I’ve seen have used a fetoscope. I was very pleased with the OB I saw during a couple of my pregnancies who respected my wish to not have my baby listened to with a Doppler in order to reduce exposure to ultrasound. Instead of criticizing me for being “overly cautious” or for undermining her by questioning her methods, she thanked me for the opportunity to keep up her auscultation skills.
Having ultrasounds for nuchal translucency tests, dating, etc. is up to the level of comfort of the parents and not something I’d advise for or against because the choices are personal, but when we get into the realm of having ultrasounds repeatedly when not for clear reasons, we should be aware that we do not really know conclusively what kind of effect this will have on our babies. It is always a bit scary to me to know that many people will do their best to avoid things like caffeine, over the counter remedies, etc. to have the healthiest baby possible, but accept many ultrasounds simply because they’re offered, expect to take an epidural full of all kinds of crazy narcotics, and have no worries about receiving hormones and hours of electronic fetal monitoring. I know that when parents-to-be ask about these procedures, they are often told things like “there’s no risk to ultrasound”, “epidural doesn’t have that much effect on the baby and will actually give you more energy to push your baby out”, and “the synthetic oxytocin is not harmful…after all, it’s the same thing your own body makes.” Not that I want to fear monger labouring parents, telling them all these things are bad, because inherently they are not…every intervention holds value if it is truly needed. But how are parents supposed to make informed choices if they are not told some of the real potential risks, and in fact, often misled? If a parent to be were to research the risks of these interventions from several sources, they would have more information with which to make choices.
The best advice I can give my clients is to do their homework. Sadly, one cannot just accept some of the answers they’re given to their questions and must research further. Unfortunately, consumers of medical care cannot take everything they’re told about medical interventions during pregnancy and labour at face value. This is certainly not true in every case…I work with some great doctors and nurses who strive to give patients the best information they can, giving both sides of the coin and respecting parental decisions. But it is true in many. Simply believing all your questions will be answered with everything you will need to make an informed decision is an innocence you can’t really afford. YOU are the consumers of medical care. Shop around and do your research.
by MotherWit | Dec 24, 2009 | Uncategorized
I had a lovely meeting with my partner-in-crime, the lovely Sue Appleton of Apple of Your Eye Doula Services in St. John, NB. She is facilitating the Summer 2010 MotherWit Birth Doula Training Intensive that I will be teaching in Morin Heights, Quebec.
I believe very much in apprenticeship for a student doula. I have been happily apprenticing students for 6 or 7 years. It is by shadowing an experienced doula a student learns how to be at births…when there is no pressure to do anything but observe and do what’s asked by the doula, much is learned. Because my training is in intensive format meant to be taken on the road to whomever would like to host it, I cannot personally provide apprenticeship to all my students. But I would like to.
What I will be doing is creating a MotherWit Birth Doula Mentorship weekend workshop. It will be for any doula, no matter her training, who has attended at least 30 documented births. This workshop will bridge the gaps between my training and other trainings, and provide instruction on how to effectively mentor a novice MotherWit trained doula through her first births. Mentorship trainees will learn about how to draw out the strengths of her apprentice, provide constructive criticism, how to guide her towards improving her skills , and show her the ropes of the birthing centres in her area.
Essentially, the mentor “doulas” the novice doula as she finds her way as a birth attendant. While a doula mothers the mother, the job as mentor is to be a “big sister”. The average amount for a mentor to be paid for a 2 or 3 birth apprenticeship is anywhere from $300 to $600, depending upon the doula’s availability and experience.
In my experience, having an extra set of hands from a willing apprentice and someone to chat with and bounce ideas off is a fun and rewarding. I love seeing a doula really come into her own as she gets to use what she’s learned to help a woman birth.
Check early January 2010 for more details on motherwit.ca
