Local Breastfeeding Resources Guide (Spring 2012)
We have just updated our Local Breastfeeding Resources Guide to reflect the current support groups, classes, hospital lactation offices and private consultants available in the Spokane/CDA region. Click the image below to download a PDF version of this 2-page flyer. We encourage you to distribute it freely to your clients, patients and friends.
We update this document about every 6 months to keep it current and include professionals new to our area or to the field of breastfeeding support. If you’d like to be added to this flyer, please contact us.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE
Herbs for Pregnancy and Postpartum Class
Local herbalist and Bloom Spokane professional member Sarah Patterson is offering a new class for pregnant and postpartum women to learn about safely using herbs to treat common pregnancy-related issues. What an awesome new resource for our community!
Class is on November 16th from 6:30 – 8:30pm at the New Moon Family Wellness Center in Spokane. Cost is $10.
Finding Friends & Support as a New Mother
We live in a world where families are separated by distance: some are voluntary, some are not. Some distances are small; some distances are thousands and thousands of miles. Whatever the case may be, you don’t realize how far the distance is until you have a child in a town where you don’t know very many people….and realize you are all alone.
I am no different. I grew up in New Jersey, and that is where my entire family still lives. Seven years ago, I moved to California (to have some youthful fun in the sun ☺ ), and I never really thought about whether I would stay 3,000 miles away from my family and friends, or if I would go back. Soon after I moved there, however, the choice was made for me when I met the man who would be my husband. After three years there, we moved here to Spokane and two and half years later I was pregnant. [...]
Birth Professionals Forum Tackles Breastfeeding
Last week was our summer Birth Professionals Forum—a quarterly meeting of birth professionals from across the region tackling our most pressing maternity care issues. The topic this quarter was breastfeeding and how to better support breastfeeding women in our community. In a room full of midwives, doulas, lactation cosultants, La Leche League leaders and WIC representatives we came up with several great ideas.
As part of this effort, Bloom Spokane created the Breastfeeding Resources Flyer which contains all of our local breastfeeding support professionals, classes, organizations and support groups. You are encouraged to print out as many copies as you’d like to hand out to friends, clients, patients or anyone else who might need support.[...]
Eat My Placenta? Ewwww!
Most people are initially grossed out at the mention of placenta eating, including my own husband. He’s heard me talk about it numerous times with my friends, and still shutters with an audible “ughhh” every time the subject comes up. Even I thought it was weird the first time I heard it mentioned, but as a woman who has suffered postpartum depression with both of my children, I only wish that someone had told me about it before I had my babies. Once you hear how and why it works, it seems like a much better alternative to anti-depressant drugs…especially once you realize it comes to you in the form of capsules taken just like you would any other pill. [...]
Breastfeeding for Working Moms
As a mom who went back to work only 2 months after my first son was born, I understand the difficult balance of trying to make a living and wanting to give your baby the gift of breast milk—liquid gold, as it is often called. There have already been many articles written about the benefits of breastfeeding and it is widely acknowledged, even by the infant formula industry, that you can’t synthesize the ingredients in breast milk that make it so invaluable to our babies health and development. Moms (and dads) often find themselves in the difficult position of having to decide the best way to care for their children AND make ends meet. [...]
What is a Doula?
This wonderful article was written by my cousin’s wife, Hannah Reasoner, who is a doula in Ft. Worth, TX. Check out her blog for more information.
A doula is a woman experienced in childbirth who provides continuous physical, emotional, and informational support to the mother before, during and just after childbirth. She understands the physiology of birth and the needs of a laboring woman.
The role of the birth doula greatly depends on the woman and family for whom she is providing care. The doula’s main purpose is to be a friend, a mentor, and a helper to the mother, as well as a support to her partner and/or family. If the mother chooses a doula in the early stages of pregnancy, the doula can help to provide information and education for several months leading up to the birth. This can also help the mother and family build an established, comfortable, and trusting relationship with the doula. [...]
