Life Beyond Birth

New blog post:
​Preventing Postnatal Depression and Anxiety
 
updated post:
The Placenta

Announcing:
​Birth Cartography Training is an Australian College of Midwives approved activity

Around the blogoshpere:
Regional Birthing Services: 
having to travel over an hour just to get basic care.  

​Continuity Choice Control: 
it all boils down to this... 

​Bias:
We are all biased by what we see 

Authoritative parenting style: as explained by Sarah Stockwell Smith 
​
​From Yes! magazine: How will Future Generations remember our time? 

Jane Hardwicke Collings talks about some of the birth related issues

Dr Alison Barrett talks risk in Climbing Trees.
​
PODCASTS:
​Hannah Dahlen talks to babyology about how to help partners feel more involved.

Nicola Rehouse talks to babytalk about her experiences with postpartum anxiety
(she mentions Kate Miller Heidke, who wrote Zero Gravity to describe her emergence from postnatal depression)

Dr Oscar Serrallachand Sean Tonnet on PBB Media​ talk about Patrescence. 

In the news
Canberra's Maternity system is getting an overhaul 

why more people are employing doulas to support their birth

lifestyle news:
- Trouble getting to sleep?  Try these. 

revisit:
In August 2017, the newsletter explored Fear, Gratitude and Sleep. I wanted to share this with you again, I have added an update to that newsletter.

The books I am reading

For those of us in the Southern Hemisphere, the nights are reaching the longest, it is the time of year to reflect and slow down.  To mend and plan.
I wasn't sure whether to share the following story or not, but it hit my heart strings and got me thinking.  This is a story about a baby abandoned in Brooklyn (New York) in 1996.   'Baby Sarah' is now a young woman, living in New York.  This is a story about her Journey.  A journey about identity, roots, a Nature and Nurture adventure.  What drives a Mother to abandon her baby? 
 
Then, in my typical question-leads-to-question way, I took my own journey.  The DNA link between humans seems to be a strong motivator: IVF journeys are driven by the (often desperate) need to have a biological offspring.  'Separation Anxiety' in small children, and attachment theory (a huge topic on it's own!).  I have been exploring Anne Manne's Motherhood for the last 6 months, along with Vanessa Olorenshaw's Liberating Motherhood. 

In July I am presenting (on the lack of consent in childbirth) at the AMIRCI (Australian Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement)  Conference.  This is a gathering of AWESOME people exploring the corners of feminism that time forgot...or ignored...the too-hard-basket.  I think maternal feminism is confronting for many, because it does put the biological impulses, needs and realities front and centre.  Historically feminism has been about 'equal rights with men', which of cause is based on he assumption that men are superior to women.  And women can have this, as long as they ignore those aspects of the feminine - the biological ones - that 'interfere with the patriarchal society.  Maternal Feminism seeks to break down the patriarchy and rebuild a society that celebrated our different needs, accommodates them all as all are valued (not just the paid) and places care-work as an essential and invaluable (not devalued) core of humanity.   
Then I read an article asking 'What does it mean to be a 'real' mother?

I would love to explore this further, and welcome your input. 

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