24 Mar
Uncategorized

Should I Hire a Birth Photographer?

The answer is obvious, of course you will want photos of the day your heart stretches and bursts meeting your baby for the first time face to face and loving them with every fiber of your being!

Sometimes during birth things get blurry, and often we regret not having any good photos to look back on. When we’re feeling more emotions than we can name, it’s important to have someone who can focus solely on documenting those moments, so you can come back to them forever.

How often do we get to see how strong we really are? Or see PURE love without any conditions? Birth is an event that is full of emotion. During labor we often flow back and forth between excitement, really hard work, self doubt, acceptance, alertness, deep inward focus, and BIG LOVE. At the end of it all there will be things we just won’t remember.

Birth photography captures the greatest love story of all! It shows the joy that lives within and between each surge, the love, the surrender, and every moment in between. It’s so important to be able to look back and see what you looked like when you met your baby, for you to see what your partner’s reaction was, or how they looked at you when you weren’t looking.

Birth Photographers are also there so that you can be in the moment. You will only have to focus on yourselves, the birthing partner can solely focus on the birthing person, and any other guest in that room can just be present.

You shouldn’t miss any small detail of your story.  You’ve worked hard for over 9 months to grow and nourish this child, and then bring them into the world with such power. Birth photographers are there to harness the grit, the love, and the strength behind every image that tells your story.

Birth is the very essence of being human and alive, birth photography can hold still the very moment it all starts; when we’re born.

09 Mar
Uncategorized

Can My Nurse be My Doula?

The short answer is no, but doulas and nurses make a great team. Modern birthing people have come to desire the support of a doula in addition to the support of the medical team. Support from both doulas and L&D nurses can achieve the best and safest outcomes for laboring women.

Let’s talk about these two individual roles to understand and appreciate the differences of each. 

Nurses are medical professionals that focus on ensuring you have a medically safe birth.They are responsible for communicating with care providers, fetal monitoring, IV medications, medical charting, and the overall medical safety of mom and baby. They do SO MUCH, and have so many responsibilities. 

Doulas are non-medical professionals that offer emotional, informational, and physical support. 

They provide support throughout pregnancy, and continuous one-on-one birth support throughout labor. Doulas continue to support families after they go home, and throughout the early postpartum period. 

The typical nurse works an 8 or 12 hour shift, but the typical labor averages between 12-24 hours. When a nurse is done with her shift, it’s time for the next nurse to begin theirs. Doulas do not change shifts, and we only focus on and work for you. 

When you come into a hospital there is no interview process before your nurse is assigned to you. The opportunity to establish a connection, or a relationship with a person that will share one of the most intimate moments in your life does not exist. Your doula is the person you have CHOSEN to attend your birth. We have built a relationship and have gotten to know you, and your birth goals.

Many L&D nurses have chosen their profession out of a desire to care for laboring women, but often they are split between providing physical support, and ensuring medical safety. This is often challenging and lessens their ability to give the type of continuous support that will impact outcomes.

Even when obstetric nurses are trained as doulas and provide labor support in addition to their clinical nursing duties they do not have the same effect on birth outcomes as when a woman has both a nurse and a doula. “ Continuous labor support by nurses had no effect on the cesarean delivery rates or other medical or psychosocial outcomes ”( Hodnett et al., 2002 ).

Doulas are not nurses, nurses are not doulas, and that is OK! We each have separate but complementary roles to play in helping families have safe and satisfying birth experiences.  

 

04 Mar
Uncategorized

15 of the most dynamic birth photos

Birth is raw, unpredictable, messy, and just plain magical. Every birth story is different. But what remains the same is the sheer force of a woman’s body as she delivers. Bringing a baby into the world takes power. You can see the power in a woman’s body – from the strong contractions, the gushes of amniotic fluid, birthing her baby en caul, or preparing for surgery to bring her baby here safely. That’s strength. That’s power. That’s birth.