Patti stopped by my studio last week so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to ask her some more questions and I got our chat on video.
I’ve pulled some quotes from our instinctive birth interview in case you can’t watch the video just now.
“What I’m finding more and more is that, women are really smart about the birth choices they’re making. They’re making more informed birth choices but they still aren’t having that support system.”
“Lately the biggest aha moment was that I realized I’m meeting people exactly where they are.”
“Rather than take a partner’s place I actually just come along and support everybody that’s involved.”
I’m just hyper focused on exactly what you’re telling me you want, need and I’m following your instincts.
‘What questions do moms not know to ask before they hire a doula’
Dona has it online actually has a list for moms questions to how to interview your doula which is fantastic and one of my clients did use that. Dona link how to hire a doula, follow this link to get the interview questions too. https://www.dona.org/what-is-a-doula/how-to-hire-a-doula/
“Of course women have always cared for women that’s not a new concept …
but they came up with the concept of actually what a doula does and in putting some structure around it. Because Penny Simpkins saw a need. She saw that births were going to be in the hospitals. So this was her way of offering a service of comfort and value to women.”
Who is in control of the birth?
“The mother should always be in charge of the birth and everybody should be working around her. Meaning everybody in the room should be taking clues from her”
“I think the modern woman can be disconnected from her body because we’re in offices all day and that sidelines our intuition…
So during the time that I’m working with you. I’m gonna encourage you to get back to that. Maybe meditate to get back to your intuition and just get back into your body so to speak and I really encouraged people to trust their body and I think that’s tough for a lot of people. Those are the things that we are working on prior to labor and delivery.”
“We’re gonna write up the birth story that’s a huge, huge thing for healing I like the power of oral storytelling I think that’s very powerful. ..
We’re gonna still orally discuss that birth because what happens when we when we oral story tell we’re gonna hear new things. You know sometimes I get a mom and she’s just talking and so I’m furiously writing and then the partner comes in the room where the partner sitting there and the partner goes yeah but then they did this and he has stuff to add and so what she thought was a simple one paragraph thing or what she thought was a two-hour thing wasn’t a two hour thing because our brains you know we can only take in so much and it’s a long emotional journey that we take. It’s extremely important to postpartum depression that we have someone to tell our birth story to.”
Everybody wants to tell their story
and that’s because telling the story does something different in our brain and it’s extremely important and if I believe this is just a strong key to fighting postpartum depression. Birth is positive it’s not scary and negative and frightening it certainly doesn’t have to be.”
So do you think telling your birth story after as a positive story helps ward off that postpartum depression? Is that what you’re saying?
“Yeah because there’s something that happens in our brain when you’ve been able to tell your story orally. Let your spouse or whoever come in and tell their side of it. Then he or she feels more bonded to you, more bonded to the baby. I just think it builds some really great brain connections when we’re doing that.”
Patti’s contact information PRDoula@gmail.com or phone at 864.907.3755. Her website is https://www.myinstinctivebirth.com
If you’re interested in telling your love story with a maternity portrait session then contact me here.
