Jenn D’Jamoos is a CAPPA-certified childbirth educator and Evidence Based Birth Instructor, human rights activist and mom of four who lives in Michigan. She founded the Livingston County Birth Circle in 2013 to serve the needs of families in her area. While the stated goal of the LCBC is to provide non-judgmental support to expectant and new families, the organization also works to elevate conversation surrounding the birth experience.  Jenn recently enrolled in White Woman School through Mothering Justice to explore opportunities for anti-racism work in the context of perinatal education.

Jenn and I discuss the importance of birth settings and putting care provider relationships into proper perspective, as well as the use of motivational interviewing to help guide people through changes without telling them what to do. We also brainstorm ways to help people birth experiences with supportive dialogue, without reigniting feelings of trauma or stress.

Connect with Jenn at EarthMamaBirth.com, on Facebook, and Twitter.

Other resources: 
Ladder of Empowerment - “From White Racist to White Anti-Racist: the Life-Long Journey” by Tema Okun
Mothering Justice         

For more information and news about Evidence Based Birth®, visit www.ebbirth.com. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Ready to get involved? Check out our Professional membership (including scholarship options) and our Instructor program.

Kelsi Kennedy is a birth doula serving women in the New York City and Westchester, NY area, and is also a grant writer for non-profit called The Birthing Circle in the greater Washington D.C. area. She has a Masters in Applied Psychology from NYU, and spent two years volunteering and interning as a data analyst for a human trafficking rescue, Restore NYC. Kelsi is also CEO & founder of a brand new ethical fashion business called rev thread. 
When she first connected with The Birthing Circle she was a new mom, briefly living in Maryland, and was impressed by the resources they offered. “I realized that every woman deserves this kind of support in her pregnancy and birth,” she said. The organization provides childbirth education, doula services, breastfeeding support and facilitates donations of baby supplies to families in need. The Birthing Circle is also promoting the hashtag #mybirthtoo - a sister campaign of the #metoo movement.

While Kelsi currently practices in a very supportive community, where the movement toward doulas and holistic care is growing, she advocates for more education and access to care in other areas which don’t have the same support. In this podcast, we discuss how some communities and underserved populations lack access to evidence based education and advocacy - and how the birth community can bridge that divide.

Resources mentioned in this episode: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh

 
Connect with Kelsi on Instagram @kelsi102 or @doulakelsi or website doulakelsi.com. Any women who have experienced any sort of discrimination, violence, trauma, or anything that has had a lasting impact on them from pregnancy or birth to use the hashtag #mybirthtoo, or visit https://mybirthtoo.com/. For more on The Birthing Circle, visit their website here.

For more information and news about Evidence Based Birth®, visit www.ebbirth.com. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Ready to get involved? Check out our Professional membership (including scholarship options) and our Instructor program.

In this week's podcast I interview Cheri Grant RN, ICCE, CLC, ICD, CLD, CD BDT(DONA), known in the birth world as "the peanut ball lady.” She is the founder, chief contributor and inspiration for Premier Birth Tools. For over 42 years, she has served women as a labor and delivery nurse, childbirth educator, lactation consultant, national speaker, author, doula, and doula trainer. She has helped with well over 2,700 deliveries in the span of her career. Cheri is also the founder of Tulsa Doulas, a community group that has helped train and support doulas for over 20 years.

Cheri’s interest in peanut balls began when she first saw their use in labor in 1985. At that time, they were just straddled. In the 2000’s, the usage of peanut balls was refined to the side-lying position, and interest in them began to grow among birth professionals. They are used with and without an epidural, and can be effective in shortening labor. Premier Birth Tools promotes education via its website, as well as Peanut Ball Ambassadors and Authorized Peanut Ball Trainers. Cheri discusses peanut ball positions and other new information on this tool.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Connect with Cheri at the Premier Birth Tools website and Facebook page.

Contact Premier Birth Tools for a free information packet for doulas, L&D nurses, midwives and nursing instructors.

For more information and news about Evidence Based Birth®, visit www.ebbirth.com. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Ready to get involved? Check out our Professional membership (including scholarship options) and our Instructor program.

Amber Ginn is a birth and postpartum doula in Puerto Rico. She had her first child at 15, and is dedicated to providing essential support to pregnant adolescents. Amber’s first birth was a traumatic experience, with interventions she was not educated or informed about, and she felt her concerns and questions were dismissed by her providers. She also battled postpartum depression with little support. Despite these challenges, Amber finished high school and college while caring for her son. These experiences led her to her career in birth work, and she hopes to shine a light on the support that is needed - and often lacking - for young mothers.

Amber is an EBB Professional member, and is also working towards certification as a lactation consultant. She and Rebecca discuss postpartum depression in adolescents, and the existing resources and research available on caring for young pregnant people and new moms. 

Resources mentioned in this episode:
Science and Sensibility: Welcoming All Families; Working with Teen Parents
Midwifery Today: Doulas Supporting Teens
Research article: Going Beyond the Call of Doula
More research available on PubMed.gov

Connect with Amber at her website, VillageBirthandPostpartumCare.com, Facebook page, and Instagram.

For more information and news about Evidence Based Birth®, visit www.ebbirth.com. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Ready to get involved? Check out our Professional membership (including scholarship options) and our Instructor program.

April Oglesby is a nurse and monitrice in Amarilo, Texas. She has been a nurse for 13 years, specializing in all types of care for mothers and babies. Recently, she left hospital work to start her own business, Welcome Baby! Throughout her hospital nursing career, she began to see huge deficits in the knowledge, education, empowerment and support for expecting families. She was frustrated watching patients receive care that was not evidence-based, and was often unnecessary. From that, Welcome Baby! was born, offering evidence based childbirth classes, doula and monitrice care, home visits for breastfeeding support and newborn care, as well as placental encapsulation.

April shares her journey of providing education and empowerment to birthing families in her community. She also asks Rebecca her advice on building bridges and personal relationships with local providers.

Connect with April on the Welcome Baby! Facebook page, Instagram account, and website.

For more information and news about Evidence Based Birth®, visit www.ebbirth.com. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Ready to get involved? Check out our Professional membership and our Instructor program.

Katie Rachanow leads the Military Birth Resource Network at the largest overseas installment in Europe, and has specialized knowledge of the military birth system.
Katie is a doula, yoga instructor, and Evidence Based Birth instructor practicing in Germany. She recently moved there following a two-year tour in Colorado Springs and a five-year tour in the UK. 

Katie shares how having her first child in the UK launched her career as a birth worker, and how she operates exclusively in a military setting. She notes that the main problem for birth in the military is continuity of care. “Everybody is moving around constantly - nobody ever stays put.” Additionally, people often end up birthing on their own, as their partner may be deployed or on duty, and their families cannot afford to travel to where they are. “I’ve had a lot of instances where moms have been alone - just by themselves - until it’s time for delivery,” she said. Together, Katie and I brainstorm ways to promote funding of doula support for military members, and build relationships among birth workers in new communities.

Connect with Katie on her website, Facebook, LinkedIn and the EBB Instructor Directory.

For more information and news about Evidence Based Birth®, visit www.ebbirth.com. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Ready to get involved? Check out our Professional membership and our Instructor program.

Juliet Swedlund is the director of the Topeka Doula Project, a nonprofit offering evidence based doula support to teen mothers, incarcerated and reintegrating mothers, and low-income mothers and their families. Juliet has worked as a birth doula for four years, and has 16 years experience working in health and wellness. She achieved her DONA Birth Doula certification in 2016, and became an Evidence Based Birth® Instructor in 2018.

Juliet discusses her organization’s beginnings and her inspirations, as well as the unique challenges of the underserved populations she works with. “Some of the women I work with who are incarcerated… so much is out of their control, and they do feel like the system gets to decide what it looks like,” she said. “So part of our job as doulas for those women is to help them understand that they can take an active role in what they do have control over - in what they can find autonomy in in that birth setting.” She and Rebecca also discuss funding strategies for non-profits. 

Learn more about Juliet and her work at her website. You can also follow Topeka Doula Project on Facebook and Instagram. Contact Juliet at julietswedlund@topekadoula.org.

For more information and news about Evidence Based Birth®, visit www.ebbirth.com. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Ready to get involved? Check out our Professional membership and our Instructor program.

This wrap-up of pain management series covers the many different drug and non-drug comfort measures during labor. Learn our overall takeaway.

To learn more about the EBB Professional Membership, visit https://evidencebasedbirth.com/become-pro-member/

Many childbirth classes teach breathing for pain relief during labor. But is there evidence that this is effective? Which breathing techniques work best?

To learn more about the EBB Professional Membership, visit https://evidencebasedbirth.com/become-pro-member/

Is relaxation for pain relief effective? Learn techniques that can be used during labor and find out which (if any) are supported by evidence.

To learn more about the EBB Professional Membership, visit https://evidencebasedbirth.com/become-pro-member/