“Once a cesarean, always a cesarean” is what was once told to women who have had cesarean births.  Depending on who you talk with these days, we’ve noticed old protocols and practices die hard. 

Being called to my first birth on Christmas Eve one year ago was a life changing experience. My own birth was the first and only one I had attended to that point, and it was the complete opposite from what I saw that day. I carried much of my own birth baggage into the first few births I attended as a doula-in-training with Barefoot Birth. I had not yet learned how to separate the experiences, though I would soon learn with time, love, and guidance from my doula sisters.

This last year has taught me so much.

We are so excited to share - this is the first in a new blog series we are working on called Our (extended) Family!  We have decided to rid our website of our lackluster "referral" and "resource" lists for something much more thoughtful, interactive, and useful! We will be featuring our favorite local businesses, services, organizations, and people. Our (extended) family that we are constantly referring our families to. We want you to know who they are, what they stand for, and how they can actually help you!

If you know anyone who is featured here- please feel free to leave a comment telling everyone what your experience has been in working with them! We love building this big beautiful community with y'all! 

This first organization to kick off this series is one near and dear to our hearts. The Tampa Bay Birth Network is a local non-profit that aims to connect birth professionals with the families that need them!

This birth story comes to us from our dear friend Susan. Susan is an ICAN leader and radical unschooling mother of 2. We are excited to share her story with you as it shows how having the right support, appropriate preparation, and belief in yourself can help you achieve the birth you and your baby deserve. 

"Kai was a planned but surprise pregnancy just like our first son. We had been trying for over a year and had basically given up on having more children. We decide to be happy with our 3 person family. I also decided that if I was going to be a mommy to one, I could also handle a new career and went back to school to become an architect. I had finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up and that was to work on sustainable community development  About 6 weeks into the semester, I found out I was pregnant with our second baby. I was so excited that all of our new plans were now going to have to be re-planned once again.

More and more we are hearing about women being "denied" a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) by their OBs, Midwives, or local hospitals. Here is some information that can help you get the birth you want and deserve

This is a phrase I hear quite frequently from other birth professionals. Whether they are childbirth educators, doulas, or midwives. That statement seems to be an automatic reply in the birth community when a women chooses something that we know, on a professional level, is an unhealthy choice. Whether it be birthing in a hospital, allowing interventions, or choosing not to breastfeed. Are we, as a birth community, standing idly by while mother’s make uneducated choices because it is politically correct?      As a doula, I feel it is my duty to educate women on the options they have regarding their birth. With my daughter I desperately needed someone to educate me. I needed someone to say that the hospital is not the place for a healthy woman to give birth. Someone to explain that out of hospital births are just as safe, if not safer, as hospital births. I wish someone would have told me my choices were not the best. I wish someone would have been brutally honest with me. Sure, it was MY BIRTH…but doesn’t every mom want what is best for themselves and their babies? Don’t we all as mothers want to give our children the best start possible?

There's a saying that birth is as safe as life gets. Sometimes birth can become dangerous for the baby or, very rarely, for the mother. This is when hospital-based maternity care really shines, and we're able to save mothers and babies who might have died a hundred years ago. Thank goodness that there are skilled surgeons who can come to the rescue when truly necessary.

There's also a saying that when you've got a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail. So it is that for hospital-based birth attendants, it is easy to become accustomed to treating every birth as a disaster waiting to happen. Many obstetricians have lost touch with the possibility of normal birth, so much so that even a pitocin induction with an epidural, fetal scalp electrode and vacuum extraction is called a "natural birth". Some hospital staff seem offended by the idea of minimizing interventions, as if preferring not to have a needle the size of a house nail inserted near your spine is the same as declining to have a second piece of Aunt Sally's Fruit Cake. Sadly, some of today’s younger doctors may never even have seen a truly physiological labor and birth—a birth completely without medical intervention.