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By Lisa Lactivist, on November 15th, 2012 
Lactivist.net sponsors Welcome World have joined together with Relaxed Birth and Parenting to become the Home of professional antenatal training. After a combined accumulation of over 60 years teaching experience they have decided to celebrate this by offering the first of a new era of antenatal teaching. Their teaching will benefit from the experience and knowledge of 3 accomplished UK teachers.
Amanda from Welcome World said:
“One of the things I often hear myself speak of on the antenatal teachers trainings is that birth and postpartum offer the opportunity to make contact with an awareness beyond daily life, not to deny, simply to see beyond. I choose to call it life providing, what do I mean when I say life provides? At the birth of the baby there is an involuntary action taking place, birth has to take place, we may not know in what form but the baby will be born. Just as when a baby is in the womb legs, arms, and toes grow. The mother doesn’t actively think today I am going to assist my child to grow toes today. It simply occurs, life provides. This contact with the fact life provides is there after the baby’s birth colostrum and then milk is in the mother’s breast. Then when the time is right and the baby’s digestive system is ready for more than just milk, teeth appear. Again life provides, the mother need do nothing except simply respond, moment to moment.
Sometimes it can almost be that we have become casual about the fact life provides. We are so busy attending to the details, to the problems. We can miss the blessing. So how do we continue to nurture this contact with life? So we experience more of what is real, more of what is our true nature, more of what is natural? Here is the foundation if you like of where an antenatal teachers training can start from; what is natural what is real what is true? Of course in terms of form this will be unique for each woman but the answer is the same for everyone to come back to our self. What does this mean to come back to myself? We could say this is responsibility; do I want to mould myself into somebody I believe I should be? Or do I want to rest in my natural, true self? Sounds simple but we all recognise it is not always easy. Most of us have so many beliefs that we have to fit in; we have to do what is right, what is sensible, what the experts say, what our peers tell us is best and the other side of the coin of not feeling capable, of not deserving. As a result we have no idea what is natural or true for us or other times we hold firmly to something that is important to us and believe we have to fight for our right to have this. Neither of these formulas in my experience brings us lasting peace.
I believe birth and parenting offer us the opportunity to walk through another door, one which reveals an ease of living that is more aligned with our true nature. How wonderful is this? To be offered the opportunity to question all the stories we have told about our self, the opportunity to meet our child in a way that we would like to be met; with acceptance, with awareness, and with willingness to hear and see them for who they truely are. So whether we experience birthing, breastfeeding and parenting as a walk in the park or the most challenging aspect of our life we have encountered the same opportunity which is to walk through this other door to the nectar of who we are.
The blessing available to antenatal teachers in holding steady that the answers are there in the woman’s heart as to how best to respond to birthing, breastfeeding and parenting is that they are learning this for themselves by being willing to offer this to others. Of course as on all antenatal teachers’ trainings we as the tutors teach modules on physiology of birth and breastfeeding, group dynamics, relationships birth preparation and more; As my personal enthusiasm is sharing my herbal knowledge students explore the use of herbs and the other tutors share their enthusiasms of yoga and active birth. What makes the antenatal training that Welcome World and Relaxed Birth And Parenting have joined together to offer unique is the trust and belief we extend of resting back into parenting in whatever way supports each parent and child.
If you are inspired by the wonder, the mystery and the joy of parenting, why not train with us.If this calls to you visit http://www.welcomeworldcafe.com/professional-antenatal-training.php“
By Lisa Lactivist, on August 31st, 2012 This is Penny wearing her Born at Home Organic Baby Knot Hat from www.lactivist.co.uk – thank you to mum Jojo for giving us permission to use the beautiful picture!
By Lisa Lactivist, on July 9th, 2008 Period type pains started becoming more regular and on Saturday morning I called the midwife who said to call back when they were longer and more frequent. I didn’t take them too seriously because everything I looked up said they were probably just Braxton Hicks and would subside. So we went off to a funeral in the woods that afternoon and as soon as I got there I had a show. People kept coming up to me and asking if it was true I was in labour, I just kept saying it was probably a false alarm, and it could be weeks yet. It was all getting a bit more serious when I was driving home (no other drivers!), with contractions lasting a good 30 seconds and getting more frequent. I didn’t bother to call Doula Sue ‘cos I still thought this was all going to go away.
When they got to 45 seconds every 3 minutes I called the midwife who was there in half an hour. With a home birth you get whoever is on call, and I got a wonderful midwife who I will never forget. I was 7 cm dilated and battling with a broken TENS machine when she arrived. I kept the TENS machine on, because I wasn’t sure if it would be worse without it, but all the connections were loose so I don’t think it was much help at all. My lovely Shiatsu lady, Vicky had come round a few days before with colour coded diagrams of pressure points and taught my boyfriend how to use them when I was in labour. He mostly used the calming ones, and they really worked, and gave me a chance to collect my thoughts and energy before the next contraction. He was fabulous throughout, I am a very lucky woman. There is little point in me describing the pain as it is different for everyone, but suffice it to say I shouted all the traditional things like ‘this was a stupid idea’, ‘I can’t do this’ and ‘I want to die’. We got to a very dark, deep and intense place with the midwife so it was a bit distracting when midwife 2 turned up, but I managed to gasp out ‘don’t let her chatter’. She was fine, but I didn’t get a chance to look at her until afterwards so that was a bit weird.
I was on all fours leaning on the sofa and just as I was pushing for the last time the cat got off the sofa in disgust and stalked out underneath me, I think I was disturbing her sleep. The next thing I know, a small brown haired boy is lying between my legs. It was all so quick that my boyfriend didn’t have a chance to catch him, though he did cut the cord. The baby was fine apart from his breathing, so the next thing I know there are 2 paramedics in my front room and I am scrabbling under the stairs disentangling the car seat from the cupboard. The nurse in intensive care looked at me aghast when our midwife said I was the mother ‘What are you doing standing up, you have just given birth?’ ‘Homebirth, no drugs’ my midwife said proudly. We had an awful few hours while he was in an incubator, I just wanted someone to tell me he wasn’t going to die, but no one apart from the midwife would and she had gone back to my house to clear everything up. Things got much better a few hours later when he was taken off the drip and I could hold him. By lunchtime I was bouncing around threatening to discharge us if they wouldn’t, as we were obviously fine, I could be waiting for blood test results at home. A nice paediatrician gave us the all clear and we are now at home getting used to being a family, I love it!
I am so glad I did it without drugs, his breathing problems were nothing to do with having a home birth and I can’t imagine having to cope with that and being full of drugs and their side effects. When the drug trolley came around the ward in the morning I was surprised to be offered painkillers, I wasn’t in pain at all, just uncomfortable. I have some tears that I am hoping will heal on their own (good chance apparently) and we are now getting pretty good at this breastfeeding stuff. He is the most beautiful baby in the world, though I accept that I may be biased here!
What I wish I had done:
- Taken the contractions seriously so I could get more relaxed about it.
- Not been so hard on myself when I was in pain, I thought I was being a wimp moaning about it.
- Packed a change of clothes for me in the hospital bag (they were in the wash!)
- Packed more than one packet of maternity pads, I think a packet a day is about right though this will be different for everyone.
- Packed clothes in different sizes for the baby, the ones I had were far too big.
- Brought change for the phone.
- Got the car seat out before I went into labour.
- Cleaned the kitchen, I was leaning against the worktop contracting and all I could think of was the mess.
- Trusted my instincts and booked the birthing pool for a week earlier.
- Got someone to show me how to use the TENS machine before I went into labour.
- Used contraception (only joking, I am the happiest woman alive)
The labour lasted 6hrs and 45 minutes, and The Moo boy was 6lbs and 7oz.
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